the Church may declare matters of Faith The testimony of St. Augustine vindicated Page 44. CHAP. III. The Absurdities of the Romanists Doctrine of Fundamentals The Churches Authority must be Divine if whatever she defines be Fundamental His Lordship and not the Testimony of S. Augustine shamefully abused three several wayes Bellarmin not mis-cited the Pelagian Heresie condemned by the General Council at Ephesus The Popes Authority not implyed in that of Councils The gross Absurdities of the distinction of the Church teaching and representative from the Church taught and diffusive in the Question of Fundamentals The Churches Authority and Testimony in matters of Faith distinguished The Testimony of Vincentius Lirinensis explained and shewed to be directly contrary to the Roman Doctrine of Fundamentals Stapleton and Bellarmin not reconciled by the vain endeavours used to that end Page 79. CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christs Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C. his fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone Page 98. CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches Testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches Infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T.C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself Page 109. CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The â—estimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of Reason in the resolution of Faith C's Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not Infallible C's Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of Infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated p. 161. CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolutions given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly true How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the Certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared p. 202. CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general Considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of S. Basil's Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less liable to corruptions than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular Texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The Similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated p. 235. CHAP. IX The Sense of the Fathers in this Controversie The Judgement of Antiquity enquired into especially of the three first Centuries and the reasons for it The several Testimonies of Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tatianus Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and all the Fathers who writ in vindication of Christian Religion manifested to concurr fully with our way of resolving Faith C's Answers to Vincentius Lyrinensis à Gandavo and the Fathers produced by his Lordship pitifully weak The particulars of his 9th Chapter examined S. Augustine's Testimony vindicated C's nauseous Repetitions sent as Vagrants to their several homes His Lordships Considerations found too heavy for C's Answers In what sense the Scripture may be called a Praecognitum What way the Jews resolved their Faith This Controversie and the first part concluded p. 261 PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church THe Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entred upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Unity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from S. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the Unity of the Catholick Church had no dependence on the Church of Rome
were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T. C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself HE that hath a mind to betray an excellent Cause may more advantagiously do it by bringing weak and insufficient Evidences for it then by the greatest heat and vigour of Opposition against it For there cannot possibly be any greater prejudice done to a weighty and important truth then to perswade men to believe it on such grounds which are if not absolutely false yet much more disputable then the thing it self For hereby the minds of men are taken off from the native evidence which the truth enquired after offers to them and build their assent upon the certainty of the medium's suggested as the only grounds to establish a firm assent upon By which means when upon severe enquiry the falsity and insufficiency of those grounds is discovered the person so discovering lyes under a dangerous temptation of calling into question the truth of that which he finds he assented to upon grounds apparently weak and insufficient And the more refined and subtle the speculations are the more sublime and mysterious the matters believed the greater still the danger of Scepticism is upon a discovery of the unsoundness of those principles which such things were believed upon Especially if the more confident and Magisterial party of those who profess the belief of such things do with the greatest heat decry all other wayes as uncertain and obtrude these principles upon the world as the only sure foundation for the belief of them It was anciently a great question among the Philosophers whether there were any certainty in the principles of knowledge or supposing certainty in things whether there were any undoubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rules to obtain this certainty of knowledge by If then any one Sect of Philosophers should have undertaken to prove the certainty that was in knowledge upon this account because whatever their Sect or Party delivered was infallibly true they had not only shamefully beg'd the thing in dispute but made it much more lyable to question then before Because every errour discovered in that Sect would not only prove the fondness and arrogance of their pretence of being Infallible but would to all such as believed the certainty of things on the authority of their Sect be an argument to disprove all certainty of knowledge when they once discovered the errours of those whose authority they relyed upon Just such is the case of the Church of Rome in this present Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith The question is What the certain grounds of our assent are to the principles and rule of Christian Religion the Romanists pretend that there can be no ground of True and Divine Faith at all but the Infallible testimony of Their Church let then any rational man judge whether this be not the most compendious way to overthrow the belief of Christianity in the world For our assent must be wholly suspended upon that supposed Infallibility which when once it falls as it unavoidably doth upon the discovery of the least errour in the doctrine of that Church what becomes then of the belief of Christianity which was built upon that as it s only sure foundation So that it is hardly imaginable there could be any design more really destructive to Christianity or that hath a greater tendency to Atheism then the modern pretence of Infallibility and the Jesuits way of resolving Faith Which was the reason why his Lordship was so unwilling to engage in that Controversie How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God not out of any distrust he had of solving it upon Protestant Principles as you vainly suggest nor out of any fears of being left himself in that Labyrinth which after all your endeavours you have lost your self and your cause in as appears by your attempting this way and that way to get out and at last standing in the very middle of that circle you thought your self out of If his Lordship thought this more a question of curiosity then necessity it was because out of his great Charity he supposed them to be Christians he had to deal with But if his charity were therein deceived you shall see how able we are to make good the grounds of our Religion against all Adversaries whether Papists or others And so far is the answering of this question from making the weakness of our cause appear that I doubt not but to make it evident that our cause stands upon the same grounds which our common Christianity doth and that we are Protestants by the same reason that we are Christians And on the other side that you are so far from giving any true grounds of Christian Faith that nothing will more advance the highest Scepticism and Irreligion then such Principles as you insist on for resolving Faith The true reason then why the Archbishop declared any unwillingness to enter upon this dispute was not the least apprehension how insuperably hard the resolution of this question was as you pretend but because of the great mischief your Party had done in starting such questions you could not resolve with any satisfaction to the common reason of mankind and that you run your selves into such a Circle in which you conjure up more Spirits then ever you are able to lay by giving those advantages to Infidelity which all your Sophistry can never answer on those principles you go upon That this was the true ground of his Lordship's seeming averseness from this Controversie appears by his plain words where he tells you at first of the danger of mens being disputed into infidelity by the Circle between Scripture and Tradition and by his expressing his sense of the great harm you have done by the starting of that question among Christians How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God But although in this respect he might be said to be drawn into it yet lest you should think his averseness argued any consciousness of his own inability to answer it you may see how closely he follows it with what care and accuracy he handles it with what strength of reason and evidence he hath discovered the weakness of your way which he hath done with that success that he hath put you to miserable shifts to avoid the force of his arguments as will appear afterwards I am therefore fully of his mind that it is a matter of such consequence it deserves to be
some generall postulata must be laid down which by the very state of the Controversie must be acknowledged by you which are 1. That the Question in dispute is not concerning the Formal Object of all things divinely revealed but concerning the believing this to be a particular Divine Revelation For it is obvious to any one that considers what vast difference there is between those two Questions Why you believe that to be True which God hath revealed the plain and easie resolution of this is into the veracity and infallibility of God in all his Revelations But it is quite another Question when I ask Why you believe this to have been a True Divine Revelation Or that such particular Books contain the Word of God And it is apparent by the whole process of the the Dispute that the Question is not concerning the first but the second of these two 2. That the Question is not concerning any kind of perswasion as to this Divine Revelation but concerning that which you call Divine Faith 3. That this Divine Faith must be resolved into some Testimony supposed infallible These three are things agreed on between both parties as appears by the whole management of this Controversie Only you suppose this Infallible Testimony to be the Church which your Adversary denies and saith It will follow from thence that you make your Churches Testimony the Formal Object of Faith which I thus prove 1. That which is the only Ground and Foundation whereon a Divine Faith is built must be the Formal Object of Faith but the Infallible Testimony of your Church is the only Foundation whereon Faith is built By the Formal Object of Faith I suppose you and I mean the same thing which is the Foundation whereon the Certainty of the Assent is grounded or the principal Objective Cause of Faith viz. not every account that may be given Why men believe but that which is the only Certain Foundation to establish a Divine Faith upon Now let any one but consider what the Question is and what your resolution is and then judge Whether you make not the Churches Testimony the Formal Object The Question is How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God which in other terms is What the ground is why I assent to the Doctrine contained in Scripture as a Divine Revelation You say The Testimony of the Scripture it self cannot be that ground You say The Testimony of the Spirit cannot be it You say A Moral Certainty cannot be it because then it is not Divine Faith What then is the reason why you believe it Do you not over and over say It is because of the infallible Testimony of the Church which gives us unquestionable assurance that this was a Divine Revelation and yet for all this this Testimony is not the Formal Object of this Divine Faith The most charitable apprehension I can have of you when you write things so inconsistent is either that you understand not or consider not what you write of but take what hath been said in such cases by men of your own party and right or wrong that serves for an Answer But for all this you tell us confidently That your Faith is not resolved into the voice of the Church as into its Formal Object but it is enough to say Our Faith is resolved into God's Revelations whether written or unwritten as its Formal Object and our infallible assurance that the things we believe are Divine Revelations is resolved into the Infallibility of the Churches Definitions These are excellent Notions if they would hang together But 1. We enquire not what is enough to say in such a case but what ground you have for saying what you do You have enough to say upon many subjects in this Book or else your Book would never have swell'd to the bulk it hath but you have generally very little reason for what you say 2. Is that infallible Assurance that the things we believe as God's Revelations are revealed from him a thing call'd Faith or no If it be as I hope you will not deny it then by your own Confession Faith is resolved into the Churches Testimony as its Formal Object for you say This Infallible Assurance is resolved into the Infallibility of the Churches Definitions teaching us that they are his Revelations These are your own words And do you yet deny this Testimony of the Church to be the Formal Object of this infallible Assurance 3. What is it you mean when you say That Faith is resolved into God's Revelations as its Formal Object Is it that the reason why we believe is Because God hath revealed these things to us But that you know is not the matter at all in question but How we come to assent to such a Doctrine as a Divine Revelation Answer me punctually to it Can you possibly resolve your Faith into any thing else as its Formal Object If you can I pray do us the favour to name it If you resolve this Faith as you seem to express your mind into Divine Revelation as its Formal Object Shew us where that Revelation is extant for which you believe Scripture to be the Word of God Is it the Scripture it self or a Revelation distinct from it If you say It is the Scripture it self then you must make the infallible Testimony of your Church needless for then we may have infallible Assurance that the things we believe are Divine Revelations without your Churches Testimony or Definitions Then what is become of the unwritten Tradition you mention in these words If then it be demanded Why we believe such Books as are contained in the Bible to be the Word of God we answer Because it is a divine unwritten Tradition that they are his Word and this Divine Tradition is the Formal Object whereon our Faith relyes Well then our last resolution of Faith is into this Divine unwritten Tradition But whence come you to know that this Tradition is Divine Into what Revelation is the belief of that finally resolved Doth it appear to be so by it self and then why may not the Scripture or hath it some other Revelation and Divine Tradition to attest it And then the same Question returns concerning that and so in infinitum or else of necessity you must acknowledge one of these two things Either that some Divine Revelation may sufficiently manifest it self without any infallible Testimony of your Church Or else that this infallible Testimony must be the Formal Object of Faith Of these two chuse which you please 2. I prove that you must make the Churches Testimony the Formal Object of Faith because either you must make it so or you must deny Divine Revelation to be the Formal Object of Faith because the reason is equal for both I demand then How you resolve your Belief of the Truth of the Doctrine of Christ you tell me into Divine Revelation as its Formal Object I ask yet further Why
us still more evidence of your self-contradicting faculty for which we need no more than lay your words together Your words next before were If the Church should fall into errour it would be as much ascribed to God himself as in case of immediate Divine Revelation but here you add Neither is it necessary for us to affirm that the Definition of the Church is God's immediate Revelation as if the Definition were false God's Revelation must be also such It is enough for us to averr that God's Promise would be infringed as truly it would in that Supposition From which we may learn very useful instructions 1. That God's Promise may he infringed and yet God's Revelation not proved to be false But whence came that Promise Was it not a Divine Revelation if it was undoubtedly such Can such a Promise be false and not God's Revelation 2. That though if the Church erre God must be fallible yet for all this all God's Revelations may remain infallible 3. That though the only ground of Infallibility be the immediate Assistance of the Holy Ghost which gives as great an Infallibility as ever was in Prophets and Apostles yet we must not say That such an Infallibility doth suppose an immediate Revelation 4. That though God's Veracity would be destroyed if the Church should define any thing for a point of Catholick Faith which were not revealed from God which are your next words yet we are not to think if her Definition be false God's Revelation must be also such which are your words foregoing Those are excellent Corollaries to conclude so profound a discourse with And if the Bishop as you say had little reason to accuse you for maintaining a party I am sure I have less to admire you for your seeking Truth and what ever animosity you are led by I hope I have made it evident you are led by very little reason CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of Tradition Of the unwritten Word and the necessary Ingredients of it The Instances for it particularly examined and disproved The Fathers Rule for examining Traditions No unwritten Word the Foundation of Divine Faith In what sense Faith may be said to be Divine Of Tradition being known by its own light and the Canon of the Scripture The Testimony of the Spirit how far pertinent to this Controversie Of the use of reason in the resolution of Faith T. C ' s. Dialogue answered with another between himself and a Sceptick A twofold resolution of Faith into the Doctrine and into the Books Several Objections answered from the Supposition made of a Child brought up without sight of Scripture Christ no Ignoramus nor Impostor though the Church be not infallible T. C ' s. Blasphemy in saying otherwise The Testimonies of Irenaeus and S. Augustin examined and retorted Of the nature of infallible Certainty as to the Canon of Scripture and whereon it is grounded The Testimonies produced by his Lordship vindicated YOu begin this Chapter with as much confidence as if you had spoken nothing but Oracles in the foregoing Whether the Bishop or you were more hardly put to it let any indifferent Reader judge If he did as you say tread on the brink of a Circle we have made it appear notwithstanding all your evasions that you are left in the middle of it The reason of his falling on the unwritten Word is not his fear of stooping to the Church to shew it him and finally depend on her Authority but to shew the unreasonableness of your proceedings who talk much of an unwritten Word and are not able to prove any such thing If he will not believe any unwritten Word but what is shewn him delivered by the Prophets and Apostles I think he hath a great deal of reason for such incredulity unless you could shew him some assurance of any unwritten Word that did not come from the Apostles Though he desired not to read unwritten Words in their Books which is a wise Question you ask yet he reasonably requested some certain evidence of what you pretend to be so that he might not have so big a Faith as to swallow into his belief that every thing which his adversary saies is the unwritten Word is so indeed If it be not your desire he should we have the greater hopes of satisfaction from you but if you crave the indifferent Reader 's Patience till he hear reason from you I am afraid his patience will be tyred before you come to it But whatever it is it must be examined Though your discourse concerning this unwritten Word be as the rest are very confused and immethodical yet I conceive the design and substance of it lyes in these particulars as will appear in the examination of them 1. That there is an unwritten Word which must be believed by us containing such doctrinal Traditions as are warranted by the Church for Apostolical 2. That the ground of believing this unwritten Word is from the Infallibility of the Church which defines it to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be grounded on such an unwritten Word which is warranted by the Church under each of these I shall examine faithfully what belongs to them in your indigested discourse The first of these is taken from your own words where you tell us That our Ensurancer in the main Principle of Faith concerning the Scriptures being the Word of God is Apostolical Tradition and well may it be so for such Tradition declared by the Church is the unwritten Word of God And you after tell us That every Doctrine which any particular person may please to call Tradition is not therefore to be received as God's unwritten Word but such doctrinal Traditions only as are warranted to us by the Church for truly Apostolical which are consequently God's unwritten Word So that these three things are necessary ingredients of this unwritten Word 1. That it must be originally Apostolical and not only so but it must be of Divine Revelation to the Apostles too For otherwise it cannot be God's Word at all and therefore not his unwritten Word I quarrel not at all with you for speaking of an unwritten Word if you could prove it for it is evident to me that God's Word is no more so by being written or printed than if it were not so for the writing adds no Authority to the Word but only is a more certain means of conveying it to us It is therefore God's Word as it proceeds from him and that which is now his written Word was once his unwritten Word but however whatever is God's Word must come from him and since you derive the source of the unwritten Word from the Apostles whatever you call an unwritten Word you must be sure to derive its pedegree down from them So that insisting on that point of time when this was declared and owned for an unwritten Word you must be able to shew that it came from the Apostles otherwise it
answer that when you say It is necessary we must believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God with Divine Faith this Divine Faith must be taken in one of these three senses either first that Faith may be said to be Divine which hath a Divine Revelation for its Material Object as that Faith may be said to be a Humane Faith which is conversant about natural causes and the effects of them And in this sense it cannot but be a Divine Faith which is conversant about the Scripture because it is a Divine Revelation Or secondly a Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of its Testimony or Formal Object and so that is called a Divine Faith which is built on a Divine Testimony and that a Humane Faith which is built on a Humane Testimony Thus I assert all that Faith which respects particular Objects of Faith supposing the belief of the Scriptures is in this sense Divine because it is built on a properly Divine Testimony but the Question is Whether that Act of Faith which hath the whole Scripture as its Material Object be in that sense Divine or no. Thirdly Faith may be said to be Divine in regard of the Divine Effects it hath upon the soul of man as it is said in Scripture to purifie the heart overcome the world resist Satan and his Temptations receive Christ c. And this is properly a Divine Faith and there is no Question but every Christian ought to have this Divine Faith in his soul without which the other sorts of Divine Faith will never bring men to Heaven But it is apparent that all who heartily profess to believe the Scriptures to be the VVord of God have not this sort of Divine Faith though they have so firm an assent to the Truth and Authority of it that they durst lay down their lives for it The Assent therefore we see may be firm where the effects are not saving The Question now is Whether this may be called a Divine Faith in the second sense that is Whether it must be built on a Testimony infallible For clearing which we must further consider the meaning of this Question How we know Scripture to be Scripture which may import two things How we know that all these Books contain God's VVord in them Or secondly How we know the Doctrine contained in these Books to be Divine If you then ask me Whether it be necessary that I believe with such a Faith as is built on Divine Testimony that these Books called the Scripture contain the principles of the Jewish and Christian Religion in them which we call God's VVord I deny it and shall do so till you shew me some further necessity of it than you have done yet and my reason is because I may have sufficient ground for such an Assent without any Divine Testimony But if you ask me On what ground I believe the Doctrine to be Divine which is contained in those Books I then answer affirmatively On a Divine Testimony because God hath given abundant evidence that this Doctrine was of Divine Revelation Thus you see what little reason you have to triumph in your Argument from Divine Faith inferring the necessity of an unwritten VVord of God But the further explication of these things must be reserved till I come to the positive part of our way of resolution of Faith I now return Having after your way that is very unsatisfactorily attempted the vindicating your resolution of Faith from the Objections which were offered against it by his Lordship you come now to consider the second way propounded by him for the resolving Faith which is That Scripture should be fully and sufficiently known as by divine and infallible Testimony by the resplendency of that light which it hath in it self only and by the witness it can so give to it self against which he gives such evident reasons that you acknowledge the Relator himself hath sufficiently confuted it and you agree with him in the Confutation Yet herein you grow very angry with him for saying That this Doctrine may agree well enough with your grounds in regard you hold that Tradition may be known for God's VVord by its own light and consequently the like may be said of Scripture This you call aspersing you and obtruding falshoods upon you Whether it be so or no must appear upon examination Two Testimonies are cited from A. C. to this purpose the first is Tradition of the Church is of a Company which by its own light shews it self to be infallibly assisted Your Answer is That the word which must properly relate to the preceding word Company and not to the more remote word Tradition But what of all this Doth any thing the less follow which the Bishop charged A. C. with For it being granted by you That there can be no knowing an Apostolical Tradition but for the Infallibility of the present Church the same light which discovers the Infallibility of that Company doth likewise discover the Truth of Tradition If therefore your Church doth appear infallible by its own light which is your own confession May not the Scripture as well appear infallible by its own light For is there not as great self-evidence at least that the Scripture is infallible as that your Church is infallible And therefore that way you take to shift the Objection makes it return upon you with greater force For I pray tell me how any Company can appear by its own Light to be assisted by the Holy Ghost and not much more the Holy Scripture to be divine Especially seeing you must at last be forced to derive this Infallibility from the Scriptures For you pretend to no other Infallibility than what comes by a promise of the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost How then can any Company appear by its own Light to be thus infallibly assisted unless it first appear by its own Light that there was such a Promise and how can that unless it antecedently appear by its own Light that the Scripture in which the Promise is written is the VVord of God You tell us A. C ' s. intention is only to affirm That the Church is known by her Motives of Credibility which ever accompany her and may very properly be called her own Light How well you are acquainted with A. C ' s. intention I know not neither is it much matter for granting this to have been his intention may not the Scripture be known by her Motives of Credibility as well as the Church and do not these accompany her as much as the Church and may they not be called her Light as properly as those of the Church It is plain then by all the senses and meanings you can find out in the very same that you say the Church may be known by her own Light the Scripture may much more and therefore you have no reason to quarrel with his Lordship or affirming it The second Testimony
an errour is the worse the condition is of all such who believe the Churches Testimony Infallible Now this is that we justly charge your Church with that while she pretends to Infallibility she hath actually erred in delivering such Books for Canonical which are not so as hath been abundantly manifested by the worthies of our Church The remainder of this discourse of yours concerning knowing Canonical Books by the light in them is vacated by our present answer and so is the other concerning Apostolical traditions by our former upon that subject As to that Scruple How the light should be Infallible and Divine when the Churches Testimony is humane and fallible it signifies nothing unless the light be only supposed to rise from the Testimony which his Lordship denies 7. The judgement of the Fathers is inquired into concerning the present subject out of whom only Irenaeus and St. Augustin are produced as affirming in many places That the Tradition of the Church is sufficient to found Christian Faith even without Scripture and that for some hundreds of years after the Canon of Scripture was written But must we stand only to the judgement of these two concerning the sense of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie We may easily know the judgement of the Fathers if two such lame Citations as these are are sufficient to discover it But your unhappiness is great in whatever you undertake If you meddle with reason you soon find how little it becomes you if you fly to the Fathers they prove the greatest witnesses against you as will appear in this debate if we first examine the citations you produce and then shew how fully and clearly these very persons whom you have picked out of all the Chorus do deliver themselves against you The first citation is that known one out of Irenaeus concerning those barbarous nations who believed without the Scriptures adhering to the Tradition of the Apostles having salvation written without Paper and Ink. But what it is you would hence inferr I cannot imagine unless it be one of these two things 1. That if we had no Scriptures left us it would be necessary for us to believe on the account of Apostolical Tradition that is that the grounds of our Faith were so clear and evident of themselves that though they had never been written yet if they had been conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition from the Apostles there had lain an obligation on us to believe the Doctrine of Christ. But is this our case hath not God infinitely better provided for us when as your other witness St. Augustine speaks Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions or speeches he commanded his Apostles and Disciples as his hands to write Christian Religion is now no Cabala to us God hath consigned his will over to us by Codicills of his own appointing and must we then be now in the like case as if his Will had never been written at all 2. But what if the barbarous Nations did believe without the Books of Scripture what doth that prove but only this that there may be sufficient reason to believe in Christ where the Scriptures are not known Is that contrary to us who say The last resolution of Faith is into the Doctrine of Christ as attested by God now if that attestation be sufficiently conveyed there is an obligation to believe but withall we say that to us who enjoy the Scriptures as delivered down to us the only certain and infallible conveyance of Gods Word to us is by them So that the whole Christian world is obliged to you for your civil comparison of them with those Barbarians who either enjoyed not the Scriptures or in probability were not able to make use of them as being probably ignorant of the use of letters 3. Doth Irenaeus in these words say that even these Barbarians did believe upon the Infallible Testimony of the present Church No he mentions no such thing but that they believed that Tradition of Doctrine which was delivered them from the Apostles I ask you then Suppose at that time some honest but fallible persons should have gone into Scythia or some such barbarous places and delivered the Doctrine of the Gospel and attesting the matters of fact as being eye-witnesses of Christs Miracles Death and Resurrection whether would these Barbarians have been bound to believe or no If not then for all I know Infidelity is a very excusable sin If they were I pray tell me what it was their Faith was resolved into was it an infallible testimony of fallible men And the same case is of such who should preach the same Doctrine from these eye-witnesses in another Generation and so on for although there might be no reason to question their testimony yet I suppose you will not say It is Infallible so that still this makes nothing for your purpose 4. Who better understood Irenaeus his mind than himself let us therefore see what he elsewhere tells us is the foundation and pillar of our Faith who have received the Scriptures Doth not he tell us but three Chapters before this That we have received the method or Doctrine of our Salvation from those persons who preached it which by Gods command they after delivered in the Scriptures which were to be the foundation and pillaâ— of our Faith Could any thing be more fully spoken to our purpose than this is Whereby he shews us now the Scriptures are consigned unto us what that is which our Faith must stand upon not the Infallibility of the Church but that Word of God which is delivered to us This therefore he elsewhere calls the Vnmoveable Canon of our Faith as S. Augustine calls it Divinam stateram the Divine ballance we must weigh the grounds of our Belief in By which we may guess what little relief you are like to have from your second witness St. Augustin Two citations you produce out of him and I question not but to make it appear that neither of those Testimonies do make for you and those very Books afford us sufficient against you The first is out of his Books of Christian Doctrine which lest we should think not pertinent you care not to produce it but we must A man who strengthens himself with Faith Hope and Charity and retains them unshaken needs not the Scriptures but only to instruct others for by these three many live without Books in a desert His meaning is that he who hath a principle of Divine life within him which discovers it self in the exercise of those three Graces needs not so much the external precepts because that inward principle will carry him to actions suitable to it only for convincing or instructing others these Books are continually useful but for themselves those good men who first through the fury of their persecution were driven and after others who in imitation of that piety they shewed there did withdraw into remote
which Cyprian replies Whence comes this Tradition doth it descend from the Lords Authority or from the Commands and Epistles of the Apostles for those things are to be done which are there written And again If it be commanded in the Gospel or the Epistles and Acts of the Apostles then let this holy Tradition be observed We see then what St. Cyprian meant by his Apostolical Tradition not one Infallibly attested by the present Church but that is clearly derived from Scripture as its fountain and therefore brings in the foregoing words on purpose to correct the errours of Traditions that As when channels are diverted to a wrong course we must have recourse to the fountain so we must in all pretended Traditions of the Church run up to the Scriptures as the fountain-head And whereas Bellarmins only shift to avoid this place of Cyprian is by saying that Cyprian argued more errantium i. e. could not defend one errour but by another see how different the judgements of St. Augustine and Bellarmin are about it for St. Augustin is so far from blaming it in him that he saith Optimum est sine dubitatione faciendum i. e. It was the best and most prudent course to prevent errours And in another place where he mentions that saying of Cyprian It is in vain for them to object Custom who are overcome by Reason as though custom were greater than truth or as though that were not to be followed in spiritual things which is revealed by the Holy Ghost This saith St. Augustin is evidently true because reason and truth is to be preferred before custom He doth not charge these sayings on him as Bellarmin doth as part of his errours but acknowledgeth them and disputes against his opinion out of those principles And when before the Donatists objected the authority of St. Cyprian in the point of Rebaptization What kind of answer doth St. Augustine give them the very same that any Protestant would give Who knows not that the sacred Canonical Scripture of the Old and New Testament is contained within certain bounds and ought so far to be prefer'd before the succeeding writings of Bishops that of that alone we are not to doubt or call in question any thing therein written whether it be true and right or no. But as he saith in the following words All the writings since the confirmation of the Canon of Scripture are lyable to dispute and even Councils themselves to be examined and amended by Councils Think you then that St. Augustin ever thought of a present Infallibility in the Church or if he did he expressed it in as odd a manner as ever I read How easily might he have stopt the mouths of the Donatists with that one pretence of Infallibility How impertinently doth he dispute through all those Books if he had believed any such thing It were easie to multiply the Citations out of other Books of St. Austin to shew how much he attributed to Scripture as the only rule of Faith and consequently how farr from believing your Doctrine of Infallibility But these may suffice to shew how unhappily you light on these Books of St. Augustine for the proof of your opinion out of the Fathers The last thing your Discourser objects against his Lordships way is If the Church be fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how can I ever be Infallibly certain that she hath not erred de facto and defined some Book to be the Word of God which really is not his Word To which I answer If you mean by Infallible certainty such a certainty as must have some Infallible Testimony for the ground of it you beg the question for I deny any such Infallible Testimony to be at all requisite for our believing the Canon of Scripture and therefore you object that as an inconvenience which I apprehend to be none at all For I do not think it any absurdity to say that I cannot believe upon some Infallible Testimony that the Church hath not erred in defining the Canon of Scripture If by Infallible certainty you mean such a certainty as absolutely excludes a possibility of deception you would do well first to shew how congruous this is to humane nature in this present state before you make such a certainty so necessary for any act of humane understanding But if by Infallible certainty you mean only such as excludes all possibility of reasonable doubting upon the consideration of the validity and sufficiency of that Testimony I am to believe the Canon of Scripture upon then I assert that upon making the Churches Testimony to be fallible it doth not at all follow but that I may have so great a certainty as excludes the possibility of all reasonable doubting concerning the Canon of Scripture For when I suppose the Churches Testimony fallible I do not thereby understand as though there were as great reason to suspect her deceived as not nay I say there can be no reason to suspect her deceived but by that I understand only this that the Church hath not any supernatural Infallibility given her in delivering such a Testimony or that such Infallibility must be the foundation of believing the thing so delivered For whether I suppose your particular Church of Rome or the Catholick Church to be supernaturally Infallible in her Traditions there will be the same difficulty returning and an equal impossibility of vindicating our Faith from the entanglements of a Circle For still the question unavoidably returns From whence I believe such a supernatural Infallibility in the Church For in that it is supernatural it must suppose some promise on which it depends that promise must be somewhere extant and that can be no where but in Scripture therefore when I am asked Why I believe the Canon of the Scripture to be true if I answer Because the Tradition of the Catholick Church is Infallible the question presently returns Since humane nature is in it self fallible whence comes the Church to have this Infallibility If I answer By the assistance of Gods spirit I am presently asked Since no man by the light of nature and meer reason can be assured of this how know you that you are not deceived in believing such an assistance If to this I answer Because God who is Infallible hath made this promise in his Word I am driven again to the first question How I know this to be Gods Word and must answer it as before Upon the infallible Testimony of the Catholick Church Thus we see how impossible it is to avoid a Circle in the supposition of a supernatural Infallibility in the Churches Tradition But if no more be meant but a kind of rational Infallibility though those terms be not very proper i. e. so great evidence as if I question it I may upon equal grounds question every thing which mankind yields the firmest Assent to because I cannot imagine that so great a part of the wisest and most considerative
can desire that they are infallibly conveyed to us 1. If the Doctrine of Christ be True and Divine then all the Promises be made were accomplished Now that was one of the greatest That his Spirit should lead his Apostles into all Truth Can we then reasonably think that if the Apostles had such an infallible Assistance of the Spirit of God with them in what they spake in a transitory way to them who heard them that they should want it in the delivering those Records to the Church which were to be the standing monuments of this Doctrine to all Ages and Generations If Christ's Doctrine therefore be True the Apostles had an infallible Assistance of God's Spirit if they had so in delivering the Doctrine of Christ by preaching nothing can be more unreasonable than to imagine such should want it who were employed to give an account to the world of the nature of this Doctrine and of the Miracles which accompanied Christ and his Apostles So that it will appear an absurd thing to assert that the Doctrine of Christ is Divine and to question whether we have the infallible Records of it It is not pertinent to our Question in what way the Spirit of God assisted them that wrote Whether by immediate suggestion of all such things which might be sufficiently known without it and whether in some things which were not of concernment it might not leave them to their own judgement as in that place When they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs when no doubt God's Spirit knew infallibly whether it was but thought not fit to reveal it whether in some lighter circumstances the Writers were subject to any inadvertencies the negative of which is more piously credible whether meer historical passages needed the same infallible Assistance that Prophetical and Doctrinal these things I say are not necessary to be resolved it being sufficient in order to Faith that the Doctrine we are to believe as it was infallibly delivered to the world by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles so it is infallibly conveyed to us in the Books of Scripture 2. Because these Books were owned for Divine by those Persons and Ages who were most competent Judges Whether they were so or no. For the Age of the Apostles was sufficiently able to judge whether those things which are said to be spoken by Christ or written by the Apostles were really so or no. And we can have no reason at all to question but what was delivered by them was infallibly true Now from that first Age we derive our knowledge concerning the Authority of these Books which being conveyed to us in the most unquestionable and universal Tradition we can have no reason in the world to doubt and therefore the greatest reason firmly to assent that the Books we call the Scripture are the infallible Records of the Word of God And thus much may suffice in general concerning the Protestant Way of resolving Faith I now return to the examination of what you give us by way of answer to his Lordship's discourse The first Assault you make upon his Lordship is for making Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith but because your peculiar excellency lyes in the involving plain things the best service I can do is to lay things open as they are by which means we shall easily discern where the truth lyes I shall therefore first shew how far his Lordship makes Apostolical Tradition a ground of Faith and then consider what you have to object against it In that Section which your Margent referrs to all that he sayes of it is That the Voice and Tradition of that Church which included in it Apostles Disciples and such as had immediate Revelation from Heaven was Divine and the Word of God from them is of like validity written or delivered And as to this Tradition he saith there is abundance of Certainty in it self but how far it is evident to us shall after appear At the end of the next n. 21. he saith That there is double Authority and both Divine that confirms Scripture to be the Word of God Tradition of the Apostles delivering it and the internal worth and argument in the Scripture obvious to a soul prepared by the present Churches Tradition and Gods Grace But n. 23. he saith That this Apostolical Tradition is not the sole and only means to prove Scripture Divine but the moral perswasion reason and force of the present Church is ground enough for any one to read the Scripture and esteem reverently of it And this once done the Scripture hath then In and home-arguments enough to put a soul that hath but ordinary Grace out of doubt that the Scripture is the Word of God infallible and Divine I suppose his Lordships meaning may be comprized in these particulars 1. That to those who lived in the Apostolical times the Tradition of Scripture by those who had an infallible Testimony was a sufficient ground of their believing it infallibly true 2. That though the conveyance of that Tradition to us be not infallible yet it may be sufficient to raise in us a high esteem and veneration for the Scripture 3. That those who have this esteem for the Scripture by a through studying and consideration of it may undoubtedly believe that Scripture is the Divine and Infallible Word of God This I take to be the substance of his Lordships discourse We now come to examine what you object against him Your first demand is How comes Apostolical Primitive Tradition to work upon us if the present Church be fallible Which I shall answer by another How come the decrees of Councils to work upon you if the reporters of those Decrees be fallible If you say It is sufficient that the Decree it self be infallible but it is not necessary that the reporter of those Decrees should be so The same I say concerning the Apostolical Tradition of Scripture though it were infallible in their Testimony yet it is not necessary that the conveyance of it to us should be infallible And if you think your self bound to believe the Decrees of General Councils as infallible though fallibly conveyed to you Why may not we say the same concerning Apostolical Tradition Whereby you may see though Tradition be fallible yet the matter conveyed by it may have its proper effect upon us Your next Inquiry if I understand it is to this sense Whether Apostolical Tradition be not then as credible as the Scriptures I answer freely supposing it equally evident what was delivered by the Apostles to the Church by word or writing hath equal Credibility You attempt to prove That there is equal evidence because the Scripture is only known by the Tradition of the Church to be the same that was recommended by the Apostolical Church which you have likewise for Apostolical Tradition But 1. Do you mean the same Apostolical Tradition here or no which the Arch-Bishop
contain the Gospel in them for it is plain he speaks of them and not the Doctrine abstractly considered should have wanted that consent of the Catholick Church that it had not been delivered down by a constant succession of all Ages from the Apostles and were not received among the Christian Churches but started out from a few persons who differ from all Christian Churches as this Apostleship of Manichaeus did he might justly question the Truth of them And this I take to be truest and most natural account of these so much controverted words of S. Austin by which sense the other two Questions are easily answered for it is plain S. Austin means not the judgement of the present Church but of the Catholick Church in the most comprehensive sense as taking in all ages and places or in Vincentius his words Succession Vniversality and Consent and it further appears that the influence which this Authority hath is sufficient to induce Assent to the thing attested in all persons who consider it in what age capacity or condition soever And therefore if in this sense you extend it beyond Novices and Weaklings I shall not oppose you in it but it cannot be denied that it is intended chiefly for doubters in the Faith because the design of it is to give men satisfaction as to the reason why they ought to believe But neither you nor any of those you call Catholick Authours will ever be able to prove that S. Austin by these words ever dreamt of any infallible Authority in the present Church as might be abundantly proved from the chapter foregoing where he gives an account of his being in the Catholick Church from the Consent of People and Nations from that Authority which was begun by miracles nourished by hope increased by charity confirmed by continuance which certainly are not the expressions of one who resolved his Faith into the infallible Testimony of the present Church And the whole scope and design of his Book de utilitate credendi doth evidently refute any such apprehension as might be easily manifested were it not too large a subject for this place where we only examine the meaning of S. Austin in another Book The substance of which is that That speech of his doth not contain a resolution of his Faith as to the Divinity of Christs Doctrine but the resolution of it as to the Truth and authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists which we acknowledge to be into the Testimony of the Catholick Church in the most large and comprehensive sense The next thing we come to consider is an Absurdity you charge on his Lordship viz. That if the infallible Authority of the Church be not admitted in the Resolution he must have recourse to the private Spirit which you say though he would seem to exclude from the state of the Question yet he falls into it under the specious title of Grace so that he only changeth the words but admits the same thing for which you cite p. 83 84. That therein his Lordship should averr that where others used to say They were infallibly resolved that Scripture was Gods Word by the Testimony of the Spirit within them that he hath the same assurance by Grace Whether you be not herein guilty of abusing his Lordship by a plain perverting of his meaning will be best seen by producing his words A man saith he is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with it self and with other writings with the help of ordinary Grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the Voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal arguments found in the letter it self though found by the help and direction of Tradition without and Grace within Had you not a great mind to calumniate who could pick out of these words That the Bishop resolved his Faith into Grace Can any thing be more plain than the contrary is from them when in the most perspicuous terms he says that the last Resolution of Faith is into internal arguments and only supposeth Tradition and Grace as necessary helps for the finding them Might you not then as well have said That his Lordship notwithstanding his zeal against the Infallibility of Tradition is fain to resolve his Faith into it at last as well as say that he doth it into Grace for he joyns these two together But Is it not possible to assert the Vse and Necessity of Grace in order to Faith but the last Resolution of it must be into it Do not all your Divines as well as ours suppose and prove the Necessity of Grace in order to believing and Are they not equally guilty of having recourse to the private Spirit Do you really think your self that there is any thing of Divine Grace in Faith or no If there be free your Self then from the private Spirit and you do his Lordship For shame then forbear such pitiful calumnies which if they have any truth in them You are as much concerned as Your adversary in it You would next perswade us That the Relator never comes near the main difficulty which say you is if the Church be supposed fallible in the Tradition of Scripture how it shall be certainly known whether de facto she now errs not in her delivery of it If this be your grand difficulty it is sufficiently assoiled already having largely answered this Question in terminis in the preceding Chapter You ask further What they are to do who are unresolved which is the true Church as though it were necessary for men to know which is the true Church before they can believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God but when we assert the tradition of the Church to be necessary for believing the Scriptures we do not thereby understand the particular Tradition of any particular Church whose judgement they must rely on but the Vniversal Tradition of all Christians though this must be first made known in some particular Society by the means of some particular persons though their authority doth not oblige us to believe but only are the means whereby men come acquainted with that Vniversal Tradition And therefore your following discourse concerning the knowing the true Church by its motives is superseded for we mean no other Church than the Community of Christians in this Controversie and if you ask me By what motives I come to be certain which is a Community of Christians and which of Mahumetans and how one should be known from another I can soon resolve you But we are so far from making it necessary to know which particular society
written and seek not the things that are not written Is it not the same St. Basil who saith That every word and action ought to be confirmed by the testimony of Holy Scripture for confirmation of the Faith of the good and confusion of the evil Is it not he who urgeth that very place to this purpose Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin then whatsoever is without the Holy Scripture being not of Faith is sin Which at least must be understood of such things which men have an opinion of piety and necessity in the doing of These and many other places may be produced out of his genuine writings attesting the clean contrary to what you produce this place for What then must we think of him Must we say of him as he did of Gregory Thaumaturgus that he spoke some things not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as though he believed them but for disputation sake because they served his purpose well Or rather have we not much greater reason considering the contrariety of â—he Doctrine as well as inequality of style to follow Erasmus his judgement concerning this Book Especially considering that Bellarmin himself who slights Erasmus his judgement herein yet when he is pinched with a citation out of his Asceticks calls the sincerity of that Book into question because he doth not therein seem to admit of unwritten Traditions which saith he ad Amphilochium he doth strenuously defend If therefore he may question another Book for not agreeing with this we may more justly question this for disagreeing with so many others Thus you see it is not meerly the style and that only on the judgement of Erasmus which makes this Book suspicious And from those citations produced out of other writings of St. Basil the 3. thing evidently appears viz. That he so makes the Scripture the touchstone of all Traditions as that Scripture must be incomparably of greater force and superiour dignity than any unwritten Tradition whatsoever But Whether Stapleton in his testimony meant primarily Apostolical Traditions or others is not worth the enquiring Concerning what follows as to the sincerity and agreement of ancient Copies of Scripture and the means to be assured of the integrity of them I have sufficiently expressed my self already Only what you add concerning the integrity of Traditions above the Scripture being new deserves to be considered For say you universal Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age and it seems much more incident to have errours sâ—ip into writings of so great bulk as is the Bible which in their Editions pass only through the hands of particular men then that there should be errours in publick universal and immemorial Traditions which are openly practised throughout Christendom and taken notice of by every one in all ages And from hence you instance in St. Johns Epistle or St. Lukes Gospel which being originally written to particular persons must be at first received as authentical upon their credit but on the other side Apostolical Traditions for which you instance in the Observation of the Lords day Infant-baptism use of Altars c. in their prime Institution and practise being publickly practised and owned by the Apostles it was incomparably harder morally speaking to doubt in the beginning of these Traditions then whether St. Johns Epistle or St. Lukes Gospel were really theirs or no. Whence we see some Books that were written by Apostles were questioned for some time but these and such like Traditions were alwayes owned as truely and really descending from the Apostles To which I answer 1. If you prove not some Tradition thus universally owned and received which we have no record of or ground for the observation of from Scripture you speak nothing at all to the purpose but two of those you instance in Observation of the Lords day and Paedobaptism we have as much as is requisite for the Churches practise from Scripture it self for the other Of the Vse of Altars it were a work becoming you to deduce the History of them from the Apostolical times beginning at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper room where the Apostles met after Christs Ascension and so tracing them through all the private houses and Synagogues in which the Christians in the Apostles times had their solemn Assemblies for Divine worship thence bringing down the History of them carefully through all the persecutions and producing evidences to that purpose out of Tertullian Origen Minutius Felix and Arnobius only blotting out non where they speak of Altars and Temples among Christians and telling us that some Protestants had corrupted their Books that where they utterly disown them they did highly magnifie them that where they seemed to speak most against them it was not to let the Heathens know that they had them By this means indeed you are like to acquaint us with some Vniversal Tradition less lyable to corruption and alteration than the Scriptures For this of Altars is the only thing by you mentioned which seems any thing to your purpose the other two being sufficiently proved from Scripture which acquaints us so much with Apostolical practise as to yield abundant reason for the practise of following Ages You do well therefore to wrap up all other such Traditions as might vye with the Scriptures for integrity with a prudent c. For you cannot but know that this game of Tradition is quite spoiled if we offer to come to particulars But it is a fine thing in general to talk of the impossibility of corrupting such a Tradition as had its rise from the practise of the Apostles and was by them delivered to succeeding ages and so was universally practised by all Christians as derived from the Apostles but when we put but that sullen demand that such a thing as hath no evidence in Scripture may be named which was so universally received and owned as the Scriptures are how many put off's and c.'s do we meet with all For fear of being evidently disproved in the particular instanced in 2. If there be so much greater evidence for Tradition than Scripture whence came the very next ages to the Apostles to be so doubtful as to Traditions which yet were agreed in receiving the Scripture I speak not of such things which we have not the least evidence the Apostles ever thought of much less universally practised such as we contend the things in controversie between you and us are but in such things which undoubtedly the Apostles did practise so as that the Christians of that Age could not but know such a practise of theirs As in that Controversie which soon rise in the Church about the day of the Observation of Easter what contests soon grew between the Asian and Roman Christians about this both equally pretending Apostolical Tradition and that at the least distance imaginable from the Apostolical times For Polycarpe professed to receive his Tradition from St. John as those
at Rome from St. Peter If then Traditions be so uncapable of falsification and corruption how came they to be so much to seek as to what the Apostolical Tradition was in the very next age succeeding the Apostles What Could not those who lived in St. Johns and St. Peters time know what they did Could they be deceived themselves or had they an intent to deceive their posterity If some of them did falsifie Tradition so soon we see what little certainty there is in the deriving a Tradition from the Apostles if neither falsified then it should seem there was no universal practise of the Apostles concerning it but they looked on it as a matter of indifferency and some might practise one way and some another If so then we are yet further to seek for an Vniversal Tradition of the Apostles binding succeeding Ages For can you possibly think the Apostles did intend to bind unalterably succeeding Ages in such things which they used a Liberty in themselves If then it be granted that in matters of an indifferent nature the Apostles might practise severally as they saw occasion How then can we be certain of the Apostles universal practise in matters of an indifferent nature If we cannot so we can have no evidence of an Vniversal Tradition of the Apostles but in some things which they judged necessary But whence shall we have this unquestionable evidence first that they did such things and secondly that they did them with an apprehension of the necessity of them and with an intention to oblige posterity by their actions By what rule or measure must we judge of this necessity By their Vniversal practise but that brings us into a plain Circle for we must judge of the necessity of it by their Vniversal practise and we must prove that Vniversal practise by the necessity of the thing For if the thing were not judged necessary the Apostles might differ in their practise from one another Whence then shall we prove any practise necessary unless built on some unalâ—erable ground of reason and then it is not formally an Apostolical Tradition but the use of that common reason and prudence in matters of a religious nature or else by some positive Law and Institution of theirs and this supposing it unwritten must be evidenced from something distinct from their practise or else you must assert that whatever the Apostles did they made an unalterable Law for or lastly you must quit all Vnwritten Traditions as Vniversal and must first inferr the necessity and then the Vniversality of their practise from some record extant in Scripture and then you can be no further certain of any Vniversal practise of the Apostles then you are of the Scriptures by which it will certainly appear that the Scripture is farr more evident and credible then any Vniversal unwritten Tradition A clear and evident Instance of the uncertainty of knowing Apostolical Traditions in things not defined in Scripture is one of those you instance in your self viz. that of Rebaptizing Hereticks which came to be so great a Controversie so soon after the Apostolical Age. For though this Controversie rose to its height in St. Cyprians time which was about A. D. 250. yet it was begun some competent time before that For St. Cyprian in his Epistle to Jubaianus where he gives an account of the General Council of the Provinces of Africa and Numidia consisting of seventy one Bishops endeavours to remove all suspicion of Novelty from their opinion For saith he it is no new or sudden thing among us to judge that those ought to be baptized who come to the Church from Hereticks for now many years are past and a long time since under Agrippinus the Bishops meeting together did determine it in Council and thousands of Hereticks have voluntarily submitted to it How far off could that be from the Apostolical times which was done so long before Cyprians And although S. Augustine as it was his interest so to do would make this to have been but a few years yet we have greater evidence both of the greater antiquity and larger spread of this Opinion Whereby we may see how little the judgement of Vincentius Lyrinensis is to relyed on as to Traditions who gives Agrippinus such hard words for being the first who against Scripture the Rule of the Vniversal Church the judgement of all his Fellow-Priests the custom of his Ancestors did assert the rebaptization of Hereticks How little Truth there is in what Vincentius here saies and consequently how little certainty in his way of finding out Traditions will appear from the words of Dionysius of Alexandria in his Epistle to Philemon and Dionysius concerning this subject For therein he asserts That long before that custom obtained in Africa the same was practised and decreed in the most famous Churches both at Iconium Synada and other places On which account this great person professeth that he durst not condemn their Opinion who held so Whether this Synod at Iconium were the same with that mentioned by Firmilian is not so certain but if it were that can be no argument against the Antiquity of it For although Firmilian say That we long ago meeting in Iconium from Galatia Cilicia and the neighbour Regions have confirmed the same viz. that Hereticks should be baptized yet as the learned Valesius observes the pronoune We is not to be understood of Firmilian's person but of his predecessors and therefore checks both Baronius and Binius for placing that Synod A. D. 258. We see therefore this Opinion was so largely spread that not only the Churches in Africa Numidia and Mauritania favoured it but almost all the Eastern Christians For Dionysius in an Epistle to Xystus who succeeded Stephanus at Rome wherein he pleads for Moderation as to this Controversie and desires him more throughly to consider the weight of the business and not proceed so rashly as Stephanus had done he tells him in conclusion that he writ not this of himself but at the request of the several Bishops of Antioch Caesarea Aelia Tyre Laodicea Tarsus c. Nay and as it appears by Firmilians Epistle they made no question but this custom of theirs descended from Christ and his Apostles For telling Cyprian that in such places where the other custom had been used they did well to oppose truth to custom But we saith he joyn truth and custom together and to the custom of the Romans we oppose the custom of truth holding that from the beginning which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles And therefore adds Neither do we remember when this practice began seeing it was alwaies observed among us And thence charges the Church of Rome in that Epistle with violating that and several other Traditions of the Apostles But Vincentius Lyrinensis still takes Stephens part and all that he hath to say is That that is the property of Christian modesty and gravity not to deliver
their own Opinions to their posterity but to retain the Tradition of their Fore-fathers As though the other side could not say the same things and with as much confidence as they did but all the Question was What that Tradition was which they were to retain The one said one thing and the other another But as Rigaltius well observes Vincentius speaks very truly and prudently if nothing were delivered by our Ancestors but what they had from the Apostles but under the pretence of our Ancestors silly or counterfeit things may by fools or knaves be delivered us for Apostolical Traditions And whether this doth not often come to pass let the world judge Now therefore when these persons on both sides had incomparably greater advantages of knowing what the Vniversal Apostolical Practice was than we can have and yet so irreconcilably differ about it what likelihood or probability is there that we may have greater certainty of Apostolical Tradition than of the Writings of the Apostles Especially in such matters as these are in which it is very questionable Whether the Apostles had any occasion ministred to them to determine any thing in them And therefore when Stephen at Rome and those of his party pleaded custom and consequently as they thought Apostolical Tradition it was not irrationally answered on the other side by Cyprian and Firmilian that that might be Because the Apostles had not occasion given them to declare their minds in it because either the Heresies were not of such a nature as those of Marcion and Cerdon or else there might not be such returnings from those Heresies in the Apostolical times to the Church which being of so black a nature as to carry in them such malignity by corrupting the lives of men by vicious practices there was less probability either of the true Christians Apostatizing into them or the recovery of such who were fallen into them To this purpose Firmilian speaks That the Apostles could not be supposed to prohibit the baptizing of such which came from the Hereticks because no man would be so silly as to suppose the Apostles did prohibit that which came not in question till afterwards And therefore S. Augustine who concerned himself the most in this Controversie when he saw such ill use made of it by the Donatists doth ingenuously confess That the Apostles did determine nothing at all in it but however saith he that custom which is opposed to Cyprian is to be believed to have its rise from the Apostles Tradition as there are many other things observed in the Church and on that account are believed to have been commanded by the Apostles although they are no where found written But what cogent argument doth S. Austin use to perswade them this was an Apostolical Tradition He grants they determined nothing in it yet would needs have it believed that an Vniversal Practice of succeeding ages should imply such a determination though unwritten But 1. The Vniversal Practice we have seen already was far from being evident when not only the African but the Eastern Church did practise otherwise and that on the account of an Apostolical Tradition too 2. Supposing such an Vniversal Practice How doth it thence follow that it must be derived from the Apostles unless it be first proved that the Church could never consent in the use of any thing but what the Apostles commanded them Which is a very unreasonable supposition considering the different emergencies which might be in the Churches of Apostolical and succeeding times and the different reasons of practice attending upon them with that great desire which crept into the Church of representing the things conveyed by the Gospel in an external symbolical manner whence in the second Century came the use of many baptismal Ceremonies the praegustatio mellis lactis as Tertullian calls it and several of a like nature which by degrees came into the Church Must we now derive these and many other customs of the Church necessarily from the Apostles when even in S. Austins time several customs were supposed to be grounded on Apostolical Tradition which yet are otherwise believed now As in that known Instance of Infants Participation of the Eucharist which is otherwise determined by the Council of Trent and for all that I know the arguments used against this Tradition by some men may as well hold against Infant-Baptism for there is an equal incapacity as to the exercise of all acts of reason and understanding in both and as the Scripture seems to suppose such acts of grace in one as have their foundation in the use of reason it doth likewise in the other and I cannot see sufficient evidence to the contrary but if that place Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven taken in the sense of the Fathers doth imply a necessity of Baptism for all and consequently of Children that other place Verily verily I say unto you Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you taken likewise in the sense of the Fathers will import the necessity of a participation of the Eucharist by Infants as well as others I speak not this with an intention to plead either for this or for the rebaptizing Hereticks but to shew the great uncertainty of knowing Apostolical Traditions some things having been taken for such which we believe were not so and others which could not be known whether so or no by the ages next succeeding the Apostles And therefore let any reasonable person judge what probability there is in what you drive at that Apostolical Traditions may be more easily known than Apostolical Writings By which it appears 3. How vain and insufficient your reasons are Why Traditions should not be so liable to corruption as the Scriptures 1. You say Vniversal Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age and it seems more incident to have the Bible corrupted than them because of its bulk and passing through the hands of particular men whereas universal and immemorial Traditions are openly practised and taken notice of by every one in all ages To which I answer 1. That you give no sufficient reason why the Bible should be corrupted 2. And as little why Traditions should be more preserved than that Two Accounts you give why the Bible might be corrupted by errours because of its bulk and passing through the hands of particular men But Do you think it a thing impossible or at least unreasonable to suppose that a Book of no greater bulk than the Bible should by the care and vigilancy of men through the assistance of Divine Providence be preserved from any material corruptions or alterations Surely if you think so you have mean thoughts of the Christians in all ages and meaner of Divine Providence For you must suppose God to take no care at all for the preservation of
a Monument of unspeakable concernment to the good of mankind and you must conceive the Christians in all ages to be stupendiously careless and negligent either in transcribing or reading the Scriptures which could suffer errours to slip into them without discovery of them Do you think that the Christians had no higher esteem of the Scriptures than of the Vse of Altars or any other of your immemorial Traditions but say you The one were publick and the other passed through the hands of particular men It should seem then their Altars were upon high places but the Scriptures were only read in corners never any such thing being publickly read as the Bible so that any alteration might be there and no notice at all taken of it The poor African Bishop found the contrary to his sorrow who was in such danger from the people for altering but one word according to S. Hieroms Translation as S. Austin reports the story But suppose it passed through the hands of particular men Was it therefore more liable to be corrupted I should think just the contrary unless you could suppose all those particular men to agree in corrupting it which considering the difference of opinions capacities and interests is a most unreasonable supposition that some verbal and literal mistakes might slip in you might rationally imagine but that therefore any great corruptions should creep into it argues your mean thoughts both of Gods Providence and the care of the Christian world Well but still it is impossible to corrupt your Traditions It were a much harder matter to free your Traditions from being corruptions themselves of the purity of the Christian Church And why so hard for them to be corrupted Because recorded in Authours of every succeeding age I had thought all Books of equal or much bigger bulk than the Scripture had been as liable to corruption as that but it seems not If a Book be written of Traditions the very Traditions will preserve it pure though as big as that Livy Quem mea vix totum bibliotheca capit But that is not all it seems these Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age Unhappy men we that cannot find them there I wish instead of writing Controversies you would write the history of these Traditions but be sure to deduce them through the Authours of every succeeding age and I suppose you mean ever since the Apostles I shall then indeed believe Popish Traditions to be no Novelties but not before But let us grant this Were not the Scriptures attested by the same Authours No It seems they were agreed about all Traditions but not so about the Scripture And the reason is Because the Scriptures were first delivered to private men as S. John 's Epistle and S. Luke 's Gospel but Traditions had an universal practice But Can you suppose it otherwise but that particular Books must be first delivered to private men Would you have them delivered only to General Councils or the Pope and his Cardinals It seems S. John was to blame for not directing his Epistle to the Pope instead of Gaius and S. Luke his Gospel to a General Council instead of Theophilus for then we might have had Infallible Certainty of them but now it is a plain case we can have no more than Moral Certainty that ever they were theirs But for this trick it seems they fared the worse for some Books were doubted of for many years in particular Churches It is well yet they were not discarded by your Catholick Church because the Apostles did not put their Books into your hands to recommend them But what if some Books by some men were for some time doubted of which yet were afterwards universally received upon sufficient evidence Why then say you Tradition hath much advantage of Scripture How so Was no Tradition which would be accounted universal doubted of by any men at any time No say you it is impossible it should for universal Traditions were universally practised at all times Now you speak home and nothing wants to the proof of it but only to let us know What these Vniversal Traditions are which were so universally practised in all ages containing things different from Scripture which are recorded in the Authours of every succeeding Age. Your offer is so fair that my request shall be very short name them and prove them and I will believe you but not before So much for this which though a digression in this Chapter yet is not from the design of this discourse Setting aside therefore your discourse about A. C ' s. Pen being troubled in which is nothing worth our notice I come to the main dispute of this Chapter which is Whether the Promises of Infallibility made to the Apostles are to be restrained to their own times or to be extended to the present Church in all ages We assert the former and you the latter For which you produce this argument That from these very places Christians do inferr that the Church shall never fall away and perish For if the assistance be not to preserve the succeeding Church at least from some kind of errours infallibly it may notwithstanding all the assistance he allows it here fall into all kind of errours one after another and so by degrees the whole Church might fall into a general Apostacy and thereby perish There must therefore be some kind of infallible assistance in the Apostles successors by virtue of these Promises But 1. Is it all one to say There shall alwaies be a Church and to say That Church shall alwaies be infallible Those who from the places in question do prove that the Church shall never quite fall away do not dream of a present Infallibility in your sense but that there alwaies shall be a number of men professing Christianity in the world And Cannot you possibly conceive that there should be such a number of men professing Christianity without Infallibility To help therefore your understanding a little suppose that all the members of the Roman Church should in one age be destroyed and according to your former Principle that if a Church may erre we cannot be certain but that it doth erre because this may be we cannot be certain but that it is but we only make the supposition Do not you think that there would be still a number remaining who profess Christianity of the Greek and Protestant Churches yet I hope you will not say that these were infallible There may be then a number of Christians who are not infallible and that is all which is meant by saying That the present Church is infallible in Fundamentals viz. that there shall alwaies be a Church for that which makes them a Church is the belief of Fundamentals and if they believe not them they cease to be so That therefore which being supposed a Church is and being destroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church the
within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquity not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them HAving thus far considered the several grounds on which you lay the charge of Schism upon us and shewed at large the weakness and insufficiency of them we should now have proceeded to the last part of our task but that the great Palladium of the present Roman Church viz. the Council of Trent must be examined to see whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no whether it came from Heaven or was only the contrivance of some cunning Artificers And the famous Bishop of Bitonto in the Sermon made at the opening the Council of Trent hath given us some ground to conjecture its original by his comparing it so ominously to the Trojan-horse Although therefore that the pretences may be high and great that it was made Divina Palladis arte the Spirit of God being said to be present in it and concurring with it yet they who search further will find as much of Artifice in contriving and deceit in the managing the one as the other And although the Cardinal Palavicino uses all his art to bring this Similitude off without reflecting on the honour of the Council yet that Bishop who in that Sermon pleaded so much That the Spirit of God would open the mouths of the Council as he did once those of Balaam and Caiaphas was himself in this expression an illustrious Instance of the truth of what he said For he spake as true in this as if he had been High-Priest himself that year But as if you really believed your self the truth of that Bishops Doctrine That whatever spirit was within them yet being met in Council the Spirit of God would infallibly inspire them you set your self to a serious vindication of the proceedings of that Council and not only so but triumph in it as that which will bring the cause to a speedy Issue And therefore we must particularly enquire into all the pretences you bring to justifie the lawfulness and freedom of that Council but to keep to the Bishops Metaphor Accipe nunc Danaûm Insidias crimine ab uno Disce omnes And when we have thorowly searched this great Engine of your Church we shall have little reason to believe that ever it fell from Heaven His Lordship then having spoken of the usefulness of free General Councils for making some Laws which concern the whole Church His Adversary thinks presently to give him a Choak-pear by telling him That the Council of Trent was a General Council and that had already judged the Protestants to hold errours This you call Laying the Axe to the Root of the Tree that Tree you mean out of which the Popes Infallible Chair was cut for the management of this dispute about the Council of Trent will redound very little to the honour of your Church or Cause But you do well to add That his Lordship was not taken unprovided for he truly answered That the Council of Trent was neither a Legal nor a General Council Both these we undertake to make good in opposition to what you bring by way of answer to his Lordships Exceptions to them That which we begin with is That it was not a Legal Council which his Lordship proves First Because that Council maintained publickly that it is lawful for them to conclude any Controversie and make it to be de Fide and so in your judgement fundamental though it have not a written word for its warrant nay so much as a probable testimony from Scripture The force of his Lordships argument I suppose lyes in this that the Decrees of that Council cannot be such as should bind us to an assent to them because according to their own principles those Decrees may have no foundation in Scripture And that the only legal proceeding in General Councils is to decree according to the Scriptures Now to this you answer That the meaning of the Council or Catholick Authours is not that the Council may make whatever they please matter of Faith but only that which is expressed or involved in the Word of God written or unwritten and this you confess is defined by the Council of Trent in these terms that in matters of Faith we are to rely not only upon Scripture but also on Tradition which Doctrine you say is true and that you have already proved it And I may as well say It is false for I have already answered all your pretended proofs But it is one thing Whether the Doctrine be true or no and another Whether the Council did proceed legally in defining things upon this principle For upon your grounds you are bound to believe it true because the Council hath defined it to be so But if you will undertake to justifie the proceedings of the Council as legal you must make it appear that this was the Rule which General Councils have alwaies acted by in defining any thing to be matter of Faith But if this appear to be false and that you cannot instance in any true General Council which did look on this as a sufficient ground to proceed upon then though the thing may since that Decree be believed as true yet that Council did not proceed legally in defining upon such grounds Name us therefore What Council did ever offer to determine a matter of Faith meerly upon Tradition In the four first General Councils it is well known What authority was given to the Scripture in their definitions and I hope you will not say That any thing they defined had no other ground but Tradition But suppose you could prove this it is not enough for your purpose unless you can make it appear that those Fathers in making such Decrees did acknowledge they had no ground in Scripture for them For if you should prove that really there was no foundation but Tradition yet all that you can inferr thence is That those Fathers were deceived in judging they had other grounds when they had not But still if they made Scripture their Rule and
nothing new to our consideration But at last we are come to a man who did in good earnest believe Purgatory and was the first of any name in the Church who did so and that is Gregory 1. But whosoever reads in his Dialogues the excellent arguments he builds it on and confirms it with will find as much reason to pitty his superstition and credulity as to condemn his Doctrine And after this time his Lordship saith truly Purgatory was found too warm a business to be suffer'd to cool again and in the after-ages more were frighted then led by proof into the belief of it And although amidst the variety of judgements among the Fathers concerning the state of the dead not one of them affirmed your Doctrine of Purgatory before Gregory 1 yet by all means you will needs have it to have been still owned as an Apostolical Tradition and an Article of Faith But I commend you that knowing the weakness of the arguments brought from the Fathers and Scripture you at last take Sanctuary in the Churches Definition on the account of which you say We are as much bound to believe it as any other Article of Faith yea as the Trinity or Incarnation it self But this holds for none but only those who so little understand the grounds of their Religion as to believe it on the account of your Churches Infallibility which is so far from being any ground of Faith that if we had nothing more certain then that to establish our Faith upon you would be so far from making men believe Purgatory on that account that you would sooner make them question whether there were either Heaven or Hell But though your Church be so far from Infallibility that we have found her guilty of many Errours yet the Word of God abideth for ever which alone is the sure Foundation for our Faith to rest upon And so I conclude with your own Prayer I beseech God to give all men light to see this Truth and Grace to assent unto it to the end that by living in the militant Church in the Vnity of Faith we may come at last to meet in Glory in the triumphant Church of Heaven which we may hope for by the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory world without end FINIS §. 1. 1 Joh. 1.1 3. Mark 16.14 §. 2. P. 1. P. 2. §. 3. P. 2. P. 2. sect 2. P. 3. sect 3. n. 2. Page 3 §. 4. Navigare audent ad Petri Cathedram Ecclesiam Principalem c. nec cogitare eos esse Romanos ad quos pâ—rfidea habere non potest accessum Cypr. l. 1. c. 3. Scito Romanam fidem ejusmodi praestigias non recipere Hierony Apol. 3. c. Ruff. Roma semper fidem retinet Greg. Nazianz. carm de vitâ suâ Bellarm. de Pontifice Rom. l. 4. c. 4. sect 1. Pag. 4. §. 5. P. 21. sect 4. P. 5. n. 4. P. 25. n. 17. sect 5. §. 6. P. 6. n. 4. §. 7. Joh. 15.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Athanas. ep ad Sâ—rapion p. 357. Tom. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil. De Spir. Sancto c. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Greg. Nazian orat 37. p. 597. Tom. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 23. Tom. 1 p. 426 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Paschal 12. Tom. 5. p 2. Dogm Theol. de Trinit l. 7. c. 13 14 Tom. 2 §. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas. c. Serapi ubi supr Acta Theolog. Wirtenberg p. 217. c. Res. 2. Patriarch Concil Florent sess 19 20 21 c. Arcudii opuscula aurea V. ep Cyrilli Patriarch ad Joh. Utenbogard inter epistol Remonstrant p. 402. V. Lâ—onis Allatii Graeciam Orthodox Tom. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas. ep ad Epictet Tom 1. p. 562. Greg. Nazian ep 2. ad Cled Concil Ephes. part 2. Act. 6. p. 357. Tom. 2. Binii ed. Paris 1636. Concil Florent sess 5. p. 587. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Ephes. Part 2. Act. 6. p. 366. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Chalced. Act. 5. Concil Florent Asâ— 5. p. 590. §. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Alexan. Tom. 6. edit Paris p. 229. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acta Theolog. Wirtenberg Resp. 2. Patriarch p. 202. Gregorius Palamas c. 1. apud Petavium Dogmat. Theolog de Trin. To. 2. l. 7. c. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sess. 19. Ubi supra Spalatens de Rep. Eccles. Tom. 3. l. 7. c. 10. sect 125. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apud Acta Concil Ephes. part 2. Act. 6. p 360. Petav. ubi supra Acta Theolog. Wirtenb p. 350. c. Resp. 3. Patriarch Cyril ep ad Utenbogard p. 403. §. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret c. Cyril Anathemat Tom. 4. p. 718. ed. Sirmond Concil Ephes. part 3· p. 497. ed. Bin. Cyril Tom. 6. p. 229. Dogmat. Theol. To. 2. l. 7. c. 18. c. 1. Concil Ephes. Part. 2. Act. 1. p. 177. Part 3. p. 596. Part. 3. p. 581. §. 11. Concil Florenâ— sess 5. p. 593. Pithaeus Opus de proces S.S. p. 26. Petav. Dogm Theol. To. 2. l. 7. c. 1. Baron Annal. ad An. 809. Sirmond Concil Gallic Tom. 2. p. 256 257. Quisquis ad hoc sensu subtiliori pertingere potest id scire aut ita sciens credere noluerit salvus esse non poterit Sunt enim multa è quibus istud unum est sacrae fidei altiora mysteria ad quorum indagationem pertingere multi valent multi verò aut aetatis quantitate aut intelligentiae qualitate praepediti non valent ideò ut praediximus qui potuerit noluerit salvus esse non potuerit Apud Sirmond ubi supra §. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Photius ep 7. p. 51. Opuscul edit Lutet 1609. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acta Theolog. Wirtenberg Resp. 2. Patriarch p. 213 214. §. 13. Sylvester Sguropul Histor. Concil Florent sect 2. c. 10. Sect. 2. c. 12. C. 17 18. Sect. 6. c. 1. Sect. 3. c. 12. Sect. 3. c. 3. C. 4. Cap. 12. C. 11. C. 15. Sect. 6. c. 3. Sect. 8. c. 12. C. 13. C. 14. C 16. C. 18. Sect. 9. c. 4. C. 5. C. 8. C. 9. C. 10. Sect. 10. c. 1. C. 4. §. 14. P. 6. Sect. 9. n. 1. p. 24. §. 15. P. 7. n. 5. Theophylact. in Joh. 3.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophylact. in Joh. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. Damascenus de Trinit c. 8. l. 1. de Orthodoxa fide c. 11. Acta Theolog. Wirteab p. 220. P. 8. Sum. 1. q 36. aâ—t 2. Vasquez in Thoâ— To. 2. dis 146. c. 7. Petavius dogm Theol. To. 2. l. 7. c. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hist. Concil Florent sect 8. c. 15. p. 239. Eadmer de vita Anselm l. 2. Malmesbu de
that it were a needless task to repeat them who so unanimously assert the sufficiency unalterableness and perfection of that Faith which is contained in the Creed making it the summe of all necessary Doctrines the Foundation of the Catholick Faith and of the Church the first and sole Confession of Evangelical Doctrine Of all which and many more expressions to the same purpose produced not only by our Writers but by yours too no tolerable sense can be made without asserting that whatever was judged necessary to be believed by all by the Catholick Church of that Age they lived in or before them was therein contained Besides what account can be given why any such Summaries of Faith should at all be made either by Apostles or Apostolical persons but only for that end that necessary Articles of Faith might be reduced into such a compass as might become portable to the weakest capacities If the rise of Creeds were as most probable it was from the things propounded to the Catechumens to be believed in order to Baptism can we reasonably think that any thing judged necessary to be believed should be left out If the Apostolical Creed be a summary comprehension of that Form of sound Doctrine which the Apostles delivered to all Christians at their first conversion as it is generally supposed either we must think the Apostles unfaithful in their work or the Creed an unfaithful account of their Doctrine or that such things which were supposed universally necessary to be believed are therein comprehended Which is sufficient for my purpose that nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith or was so esteemed by the Catholick Church which is not contained in the Ancient Creeds 2. Nothing ought to be judged a necessary Article of Faith but what was universally believed by the Catholick Church to be delivered as such by Christ or his Apostles So that it is not the judgement but the testimony of the Catholick Church which must be relyed on and that testimony only when universal as delivering what was once infallibly delivered by Christ or his Apostles From whence it follows that any one who will undertake to make out any thing as a necessary Article of Faith by Catholick Tradition meerly must do these things 1. He must make it appear to be universally embraced at all times and in all places by such who were members of the Catholick Church 2. That none ever opposed it but he was presently disowned as no member of the Catholick Church because opposing something necessary to Salvation 3. That it be delivered by all those Writers of the Church who give an account of the Faith of Christians or what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles to the Church 4. That it was not barely looked on as necessary to be believed by such as might be convinced it was of Divine Revelation but that it was deliver'd with a necessity of its being explicitly believed by all 5. That what is deliver'd by the consent of the Writers of the Catholick Church was undoubtedly the Consent of the Church of those ages 6. That all those Writers agree not only in the Belief of the thing it self but of the Necessity of it to all Christians 7. That no Writers or Fathers of succeeding Ages can be supposed to alter in the belief either of the matters believed before or the necessity of them 8. That no oppositions of Hereticks or heats of Contention could make them judge any Article so opposed to be more necessary than it was judged before that Contention or they themselves would have judged it had it not been so opposed 9. That when they affirm many Traditions to be Apostolical which yet varied in several Churches they could not affirm any Doctrine to be Apostolical which they were not universally agreed in 10. That when they so plainly assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith they did yet believe something necessary to Salvation which was not contained therein When you or any one else will undertake to make good these conditions I shall then begin to believe that something may be made appear to be a necessary Article of Faith which is not clearly revealed in Scripture but not before but till then this Negative will suffice that nothing ought to be embraced as the judgement of the Church concerning a necessary Article of Faith but what appears to be clearly revealed in Scriture and universally embraced by the Catholick Church of all Ages 3. Nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith by the judgement of the Catholick Church the denyal of which was not universally opposed and condemned as Heresie For otherwise the Catholick Church was very little sensible of the honour of Christian Faith if it suffered dissenters in necessary things without putting a mark of dishonour upon them Therefore we may conclude that whatever was patiently born with in such as dissented from the generality of Christians especially if considerable persons in the Church were the authors or fomenters of such opinions however true the contrary Doctrine was supposed to be yet it was not supposed necessary because then the opposers would have been condemned of Heresie by some open act of the Catholick Church But if beyond these Negatives we would enquire what was positively believed as necessary to Salvation by the Catholick Church we shall hardly find any better way than by the Articles of the Ancient Creeds and the universal opposition of any new Doctrine on its firsts appearance and the condemning the broachers of it for Heresie in Oecumenical Councils with the continual disapprobation of those Doctrines by the Christian Churches of all Ages As is clear in the cases of Arrius and Pelagius For it seems very reasonable to judge that since the necessary Articles of Faith were all delivered by the Apostles to the Catholick Church since the foundation of that Church lyes in the belief of those things which are necessary that nothing should be delivered contrary to any necessary Article of Faith but the Church by some evident act must declare its dislike of it and its resolution thereby to adhere to that necessary Doctrine which was once delivered to the Saints And withall it seems reasonable that because Art and Subtilty may be used by such who seek to pervert the Catholick Doctrine and to wrest the plain places of Scripture which deliver it so far from their proper meaning that very few ordinary capacities may be able to clear themselves of such mists as are cast before their eyes the sense of the Catholick Church in succeeding ages may be a very useful way for us to embrace the true sense of Scripture especially in the great Articles of the Christian Faith As for instance in the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ or the Trinity though the subtilty of such Modern Hereticks who oppose either of these may so far prevail on persons either not of sufficient
tam manifesta monstratur where it is plain quae which is relative only to Truth and not to Scripture or any thing else A wonderful abuse of S. Austin to make him parallel plain Scripture evident sense or a full Demonstrative Argument with Truth As though if evident Truth were more prevalent with him than all those Arguments which held him in the Catholick Church plain Scripture evident Sense or Demonstrations would not be so too What Truth can be evident if it be not one of these three Do you think there is any other way of manifesting Truth but by Scripture Sense or Demonstration if you have found out other waies oblige the world by communicating them but till then give us leave to think that it is all one to say Manifest Truth as plain Scripture evident Sense or clear Demonstrations But say you He speaks only of that Truth which the Manichees bragged of and promised As though S. Austin would have been perswaded sooner as it came from them than as it was Truth in it self I suppose S. Austin did not think their Testimony sufficient and therefore sayes Quae quidem si tam manifesta monstratur c. i. e. If they could make that which they said evident to be Truth he would quit the Church and adhere to them and if this holds against the Manichees will it not on the same reason hold every where else viz. That manifest Truth is not to be quitted on any Authority whatsoever which is all his Lordship asserts But You offer to prove that S. Austin by Truth could not mean plain Scripture But can you prove that by Truth he did not mean Truth whereever he found it whether in Scripture or elsewhere No say you It cannot be meant that by Truth he should mean plain Scripture in opposition to the Definitions of the Catholick Church or General Councils For which you give this Reason because he supposes it impossible that the Doctrine of the Catholick Church should be contrary to Scripture for then men according to S. Austin should not believe infallibly either the one or the other Not the Scriptures because they are received only upon the Authority of the Church nor the Church whose Authority is infringed by the plain Scripture which is brought against her For which you produce a large citation out of S. Austin to that purpose But the Answer to that is easie For S. Austin when he speaks of Church-Authority quâ infirmatâ jam nec Evangelio credere potero he doth not in the least understand it of any Definitions of the Church but of the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church concerning the Scriptures from the time of Christ and his Apostles And what plain Scriptures those are supposable which should contradict such a Tradition as this is is not easie to understand But the case is quite otherwise as to the Churches Definitions for neither doth the Authority of Scripture at all rest upon them and there may be very well supposed some plain Scriptures contrary to the Churches Definitions unless it be proved that the Church is absolutely Infallible and the very proof of that depending on Scripture there must be an appeal made to plain Scripture whether the Churches Definitions may not be contradicted by Scripture When therefore you say This is an impossible Supposition that Scripture should contradict the Churches Definitions like that of the Apostle If an Angel from Heaven teach otherwise let him be accursed Gal. 1. You must prove it as impossible for the Church to deviate from Scripture in any of her Definitions as for an Angel to preach another Gospel which will be the braver attempt because it seems so little befriended either by sense or reason But say you If the Church may be an erring Definer I would gladly know why an erring Disputer may not oppugn her That which you would so gladly know is not very difficult to be resolved by any one who understands the great difference between yielding an Internal Assent to the Definitions of the Church and open opposing them for it only follows from the possibility of the Churches Errour in defining that therefore we ought not to yield an absolute Internal Assent to all her determinations but must examine them by the best measures of Truth in order to our full Assent to them but though the Church may erre it doth not therefore follow that it is lawful in all cases or for all persons to oppugn her Definitions especially if those Definitions be only in order to the Churches Peace but if they be such as require Internal Assent to them then plain Scripture evidence of Sense or clear Reason may be sufficient cause to hinder the submitting to those Definitions 2. You tell us That his Lordship hath abused S. Austin 's Testimony because he speaks not of the Definitions of the Church in matters not Fundamental according to the matter they contain but the Truth mentioned by him was Fundamental in its matter This is the substance of your second Answer which is very rational and prudent being built on this substantial Evidence If S. Austin doth preferr manifest Truth before things supposed Fundamental in the matter then no doubt S. Austin would not preferr manifest Truth before things supposed not-Fundamental in the matter And do not you think this enough to charge his Lordship with shamefully abusing S. Austin But certainly if S. Austin preferred manifest Truth before that which was greater would he not do it before that which was incomparably less If he did it before all those things which kept him in the Catholick Church such as the consent of Nations Miracles Universal Tradition which he mentions before do you think he would have scrupled to have done it as to any particular Definitions of the Church These are therefore very excellent waies of vindicating the Fathers Testimonies from having any thing of sense or reason in them 3. You say He hath abused S. Austin by putting in a wrangling Disputer But I wonder where his Lordship ever sayes that S. Austin mentions any such in the Testimony cited For his words are these But plain Scripture with evident Sense or a full Demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these over against these words he referrs to S. Austin's Testimony and not the foregoing but may convince the Definition of the Council if it be ill founded When you therefore ask Where the wrangling Disputer is to be found had it not been for the help of this Cavil we might have been to seek for him But when you have been enquiring for him at last you cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh! I see now And you are the fittest man to find him out that I know You say This is done to distinguish him from such a Disputer as proceeds solidly and demonstratively against the Definitions of the Church when they are
are for he speaks of those things which all Christians who have a care of their Salvation are to avoid of such things as are contrary to all Antiquity and such kind of Dogmata I freely grant the Definitions of your Church to be Your second citation is as happy as the first cap. 28. Crescat saith he speaking of the Church sed in suo duntaxat genere in eodem scilicet Dogmate eodem sensu eâdemque sententiâ An excellent place no doubt to prove it in the Churches power to define new Articles of Faith because the Church must alwaies remain in the same Belief sense and opinion When his words but little foregoing are Profectus sit ille fidei non permutatio which without the help of English Lexicons you would willingly render by leaving out that troublesome Particle non that the best progress in Faith is by adding new Articles though it be as contrary to reason as it is to the sense of Vincentius Lerinensis If Vincentius saith that the Pelagians erred in Dogmate fidei which words neither appear cap. 24. nor 34. he gives this reason for it because they contradict the Vniversal sense of Antiquity and the Catholick Church cap. 34. So that still Vincentius where-ever he speaks of this Dogma fidei speaks in direct opposition to your sense of it for new definitions of the Church in matters of Faith There being scarce any book extant which doth more designedly overthrow this opinion of yours then that of Vincentius doth To shew therefore how much you have wronged his Lordship and what little advantage comes to your cause by your insisting on Vincentius his testimony I shall give a brief account both of his Design and Book The design of it is to shew what wayes one should use to prevent being deceived by such who pretend to discover new matters of Faith and those he assigns to be these two setling ones faith on the Authority of Scripture and the tradition of the Catholick Church But since men would enquire The Canon of Scripture being perfect and abundantly sufficient for all things what need can there be of Ecclesiastical tradition He answers For finding out the true sense of Scripture which is diversly interpreted by Novatianus Photinus Sabellius Donatus Arrius Eunomius Macedonius Apollinaris c. In the following Chapter he tells us what he means by this Ecclesiastical tradition Quod ubique quod semper ab omnibus creditum est that which hath Antiquity Vniversality and Consent joyning in the belief of it And can any new Definitions of the Church pretend to all or any of these He after enquires what is to be done in case a particular Church separates it self from the communion of the Catholick He answers We ought to prefer the health of the whole body before any pestiferous or corrupted member But in case any Novel Contagion should spread over not a part only but endanger the whole Church then saith he a man must adhere to Antiquity which cannot be deceived with a pretence of Novelty But if in Antiquity we find out the errour of two or three particular Persons or City or Province what is then to be done then saith he the Decrees of General Councils are to be preferred But in case there be none then he adds The general consent of the most approved writers of the Church is to be enquired after and what they all with one consent openly frequently constantly held writ and taught that let every man look on himself as bound to believe without hesitation Now then prove but any one of the new Articles of Faith in the Tridentine Confession by these rules of Vincentius and it will appear that you have produced his Testimony to some purpose else nothing will be more strong and forcible against all your pretences than this discourse of Vincentius is which he inlarges by the examples of the Donatists Arrians and others in the following Chapters in which still his scope is to assert Antiquity and condemn all Novelties in matters of Faith under any pretext whatsoever For this ch 12 14. he cites a multitude of Texts of Scripture forbidding our following any other Doctrine but what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles and Anathematizing all such as such as should Preach any other Gospel and concludes that with this remarkable speech It never was never is never will be lawful to propose any thing as matter of Faith to Christian Catholicks besides what they have received And it was is and will be becoming Christians to Anathematize all such who declare any thing but what they have received Do you think this man was not of your minde in the Doctrine of Fundamentals could he do otherwise then believe it in the Churches power to define things necessary to Salvation who would have all those Anathematized who pretend to declare any thing as matter of Faith but what they received as such from their Ancestours And after he hath at large exemplified this in the Photinian Nestorian Apollinarian Heresies and shewed how little the Authority of private Doctors how excellent soever is to be relyed on in matters of faith he concludes again with this Whatsoever the Catholick Church held universally that and that alone is to be held by particular persons And after admires at the madness blindness perverseness of those who are not contented with the once delivered and ancient rule of Faith but are still seeking new things and alwaies are itching to add alter take away some thing of Religion or matter of Faith As though that were not a Heavenly Doctrine which may suffice to be once revealed but an earthly institution which cannot be perfect but by continual correction and amendment Is not this man now a fit person to explain the sense of your Churches new Definitions and Declarations in matters of Faith And have not you hit very right on this sense of Dogma when here he understands by it that Doctrine of Faith which is not capable of any addition or alteration And thus we understand sufficiently what he means by the present controverted place that if men reject any part of the Catholick Doctrine they may as well refuse another and another till at last they reject all By the Catholick Doctrine or Catholicum dogma there he means the same with the Coeleste dogma before and by both of them understands that Doctrine of Faith which was once revealed by God and which is capable of no addition at all having Antiquity Vniversality and Consent going along with it and when you can prove that this Catholicum dogma doth extend beyond those things which his Lordship calls Catholick Maxims or properly Fundamental Truths you will have done something to the purpose which as yet you have failed in And thus we say Vincentius his rule is good though we do not say that he was infallible in the application of it but that he might mention some such things to
have had Antiquity Vniversality and Consent which had not so such as the business of not rebaptizing Hereticks and the observation of Easter which you instance in And withall we add though nothing is to be admitted for matter of Faith which wants those three marks yet some things may have all three of them and yet be no matters of Faith at all and therefore not at all pertinent to this question Such as those things are which you insist on as deposita dogmata which doubtless is a rare way of probation viz. to shew that by dogmata deposita Vincentius means some articles of Faith which are not Fundamental in the matter of them and for that make choice of such instances which are no matters of faith at all but either ritual traditions or matters of order such as the form and matter of Sacraments the Hierarchy of the Church Paedobaptism not rebaptizing Hereticks the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary For that of the Canon of Scripture it will be elsewhere considered as likewise those other Church-traditions How the Church should still keep hoc idem quod antea as you confess she ought and yet make some things necessary to be believed by all which before her declaration were not so is somewhat hard to conceive and yet both these you assert together Is that which is necessary to be believed by all the same with that which was not necessary to be so believed if the same measure of Faith will not serve after which would have done before is there not an alteration made Yes you grant as to our believing but not as to the thing for that is the same it was But do you in the mean time consider what kind of thing that is which you speak of which is a thing propounded to be believed and considered in no other respect but as it is revealed by God in order to our believing it now when the same thing which was required only to be believed implicitely i. e. not at all necessarily is now propounded to be believed expresly and necessarily the Fundamental nature of it as an object of Faith is altered For that which you call implicite Faith doth really imply as to all those things to be believed implicitely that there is an indifferency whether they be believed or no nothing being necessary to be believed but what is propounded to be expresly believed Which being so Can it be imagined there should be a greater alteration in a matter of Faith then from its being indifferent whether it were believed or no to become necessary to be expresly believed by all in order to Salvation And where there is such an alteration as this in the thing to be believed who can without the help of a very commodious implicite Faith believe that still this is hoc idem quod antea the very same as a matter of Faith which it was before Though the Church were careful to preserve every Iota and tittle of Sacred Doctrines yet I hope it follows not that every Iota and tittle is of as much consequence and as necessary to be believed as the main substance of Christian Doctrine Although when any Doctrine was violently opposed in the Church she might declare her owning it by some overt act yet thence it doth not follow that the internal assent to every thing so declared is as necessary as to that proposition that Jesus is the Son of God the belief of which the Scripture tells us was the main design of the writing of Scripture That General Councils rightly proceeding may be great helps to the Faith of Christians I know none that deny but that by vertue of their definitions any thing becomes necessary to be believed which was not so before remains yet to be proved You much wonder his Lordship should father that saying on Vincentius That If new Doctrines be added to the old the Church which is Sacrarium veritatis the repository of verity may be changed in Lupanar errorum which his Lordship saith he is loth to English for you tell us That Vincentius is so far from entertaining the least thought of it that he presently adds Deus avertat God forbid it should be so A stout Inference Just as if one should say The Church of Rome may be in time overspread with the Mahumetan Religion but God forbid it should be so Were he not an excellent Disputer who should hence inferr it impossible ever to be so What you add out of Vincentius only proves that he did not believe it was so in his time but doth not in the least prove that he believed it impossible that ever it should be so afterwards but notwithstanding all that you say it is evident enough that Vincentius believed it a very supposable Case by that question he puts elsewhere What if any new contagion doth not only endeavour to defile a part only but the whole Church in which he saith we are to adhere to antiquity If you answer he speaks only of an endeavour it is soon replyed That he speaks of such an endeavour as puts men to dispute a question what they are to do in such a Case and he resolves at that time they are not to adhere to the judgement of the present Church but to that of Antiquity which is all we desire in that Case viz. That the present Church may so far add to matters of Faith that we can in no reason be obliged to rely only upon her judgement Wherein we are to consider the Question is not of that you call the diffusive but the representative Church all which may be overspread and yet but a part of the other but yet if that Church whose judgement you say only is to be relyed on may be so infected it is all one as to those who are to be guided by her judgement whether the other be or no. For here eadem est ratio non entis non apparentis because it is not the reality but the manifestation which is the ground of mens relying on the Churches judgement So that if as to all outward appearance and all judicial acts of the Church she may recede from the ancient Faith and add novitia veteribus whether all particular persons in it do so or no all ground of relying on the judgement of that Church is thereby taken away Whether it be the Church her self or Hereticks in the Church which make these additions is very little material if these Hereticks who add these new articles of Faith may carry themselves so cunningly as to get to themselves the reputation of the Catholick Church and so that which ought to have been Sacrarium veritatis may become impiorum turpium errorum Lupanar which your Church is concerned not to have Englished but by the help of Rider and other good Authours of yours it is no hard matter to come to understand it And thus we see how much you have abused his Lordship
in charging him with a threefold falsification of Vincentius Lerinensis The second thing which his Lordship answers is That all determinations of the Church are not made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation because some are made by Scripture and others as Stapleton saith without any evident or probable testimony of Holy writ though therein Bellarmine falls quite off and confesses in express terms that nothing can be certain by certainty of Faith unless it be contained immediately in the Word of God or be deduced thence by evident consequence Your only design here is to vindicate your two great Champions from contradicting each other which though it be of little consequence to the main Assertion of his Lordship which you knew well enough and therefore carefully avoid the main Charge of your enemy to part two of your quarrelling friends yet since you intend this for a tryal of your skill we must see how well you play your Prize Stapleton you say means that we must submit to the determinations of the Church and the traditions she approves though they be not expresly contained in Scripture Excellently well guessed at Stapletons meaning when the very words you cite out of him are We ought not to deny our assent in matters of Faith though we have them only by tradition or the decisions of the Church against Hereticks and not confirmed with evident or probable testimony of Scripture What a rare Interpreter are you grown since your acquaintance with Rider and other English Lexicons Who make not denying assent in matters of Faith to be the same with submitting to the Churches Determinations when you know well enough we plead for submission to the Churches Determinations where there may be a liberty as to internal assent and it is as good to make no evident or probable testimony of Scripture the same with not being expresly contained in Scripture as though nothing which was not expresly contained in Scripture could have any probable testimony from thence And from this we may guess what an easie matter it is for you to accommodate all persons who differ if one sayes Yes and the other No you will tell them they do not differ but that one of them by Yes means No and the other by No means Yes Just so here you reconcile Stapleton and Bellarmine for you say Stapleton by no probable testimony means some kind of probable testimony viz. such as though not express may be yet deduced from Scripture and Bellarmine when he speaks of Gods written Word as the ground of certainty means that which is neither Gods Word nor yet written viz. Tradition I never met with one who had a better faculty of reconciling than you seem to have by this attempt But his Lordship had prevented this subterfuge as to Bellarmine and Stapleton as if Stapleton spake of the Word of God written and Bellarmine of the Word of God unwritten as he calls Tradition For Bellarmine saith he there treats of the knowledge which a man hath of the certainty of his own Salvation And I hope A. C. will not tell us there 's any Tradition extant unwritten by which particular men may have assurance of their several Salvations Therefore Bellarmine 's whole Disputation there is quite beside the matter Or else he must speak of the written Word and so lye cross to Stapleton as is mentioned You tell us This Reason is very strange but I dare say yours exceeds it in strangeness which is because Bellarmines design was to shew there was no such unwritten Tradition to be found But doth Bellarmine dispute against any body or no body If he disputes against any body upon your principles those whom he disputes against must be such who assert that men may have certainty of Faith concerning their Salvation from Tradition and you would do well to tell us Who those were that pretended that there was a Tradition or unwritten word delivered down from the Apostles that they should be saved And though Bellarmine was not to affirm this yet those he disputed against upon your Principles must be supposed to do it But certainly you thought none of your Readers did ever intend to look into Bellarmine for the place in Controversie for if they did nothing could be more plain than that Bellarmines reason against Catharinus and others proceeds wholly and only upon the written Word For 1. When he saith that Nothing can be certain with the certainty of Faith but what is either immediately contained in the Word of God or may be deduced thence by evident consequence because Faith can rest on nothing but the authority of Gods Word he adds That of this Principle neither the Catholicks nor the Hereticks doubt But I pray do those whom Bellarmine there calls Hereticks acknowledge the unwritten Word as a foundation for certainty of Faith in the Case Disputed therefore it is plain he speaks exclusively of a written Word 2. When he mentions the Assumption he evidently explains himself of the written Word for saith he There is no such Proposition contained in the Word of God that such and such a particular person is justified for there are none mentioned therein save Mary Magdalen and a certain Paralytick of whom it is said their sins are forgiven them Caeteri homines in sacris literis nè nominantur quidem And will Rider and your other good friends the English Lexicons help you to interpret Sacrae literae by unwritten Traditions Could any one that had either any common sense left in him or else had not a design most grosly to impose on his Readers offer to perswade men that Bellarmine could here understand the Word of God in a sense common to Scripture and Tradition If you can prove that Bellarmine saith otherwise elsewhere you are so far from reconciling Bellarmine and Stapleton that you will not easily reconcile Bellarmine to himself The remainder of this Chapter either refers to something to be handled afterwards as the Infallibility of the Church and Councils or else barely repeats what hath been discussed already concerning your sense of Fundamentals and therefore I dare not presume so far on the Reader 's patience as to give him the same things over and over CHAP. IV. The Protestant Doctrine of Fundamentals vindicated The unreasonableness of demanding a Catalogue of Fundamentals The Creed contains the Fundamentals of Christian Communion The belief of Scripture supposed by it The Dispute concerning the Sense of Christ's Descent into Hell and Mr. Rogers his Book confessed by T. C. impertinent With others of the same nature T. C ' s fraud in citing his Lordships words Of Papists and Protestants Vnity The Moderation of the Church of England compared with that of Rome Her grounds of Faith justified Infant-Baptism how far proved out of Scripture alone THis Chapter begins with a very pertinent Question as you call it we might the easier believe it to be so because it is
believe them this Divine Testimor is never pretended to be contained in the Creed but that it is only a summary Collection of the most necessary Points which God hath revealed and therefore something else must be supposed as the ground and formal reason why we assent to the truth of those things therein contained So that the Creed must suppose the Scripture as the main and only Foundation of believing the matters of Faith therein contained But say you If all the Scripture be included in the Creed there appears no great reason of scruple why the same should not be said of Traditions and other Points especially of that for which we admit Scripture it self But do you make no difference between the Scripture being supposed as the ground of Faith and all Scripture being contained in the Creed And doth not his Lordship tell you That though some Articles may be Fundamental which are infolded in the Creed it would not follow that therefore some unwritten Traditions were Fundamental for though they may have Authority and use in the Church as Apostolical yet are they not Fundamental in the Faith And as for that Tradition That the Books of Holy Scripture are Divine and Infallible in every part he promises to handle it when he comes to the proper place for it And there we shall readily attend what you have to object to what his Lordship saith about it But yet you say His Lordship doth not answer the Question as far as it was necessary to be answered we say he doth No say you For the Question arising concerning the Greek Churches errour whether it were Fundamental or no Mr. Fisher demanded of the Bishop What Points he would account Fundamental to which he answers That all Points contained in the Creed are such but yet not only they and therefore this was no direct Answer to the Question for though the Greeks errour was not against the Creed yet it may be against some other Fundamental Article not contained in the Creed This you call fine shuffling To which I answer That when his Lordship speaks of its not being Fundamentum unicum in that sense to exclude all things not contained in the Creed from being Fundamental he spake it with an immediate respect to the belief of Scripture as an Infallible Rule of Faith For saith he The truth is I said and say still That all the Points of the Apostles Creed as they are there expressed are Fundamental And herein I say no more than some of your best learned have said before me But I never said or meant that they only are Fundamental that they are Fundamentum unicum is the Council of Trent's 't is not mine Mine is That the belief of Scripture to be the Word of God and Infallible is an equal or rather a preceding Principle of Faith with or to the whole body of the Creed Now what reason can you have to call this shuffling unless you will rank the Greeks errour equal with the denying the Scripture to be the Word of God otherwise his Lordship's Answer is as full and pertinent as your cavil is vain and trifling His Lordship adds That this agrees with one of your own great Masters Albertus Magnus who is not far from the Proposition in terminis To which your Exceptions are so pitiful that I shall answer them without reciting them for he that supposeth the sense of Scripture joyned with the Articles of Faith to be the Rule of Faith as Albertus doth must certainly suppose the belief of the Scripture as the Word of God else how is it possible its sense should be the Rule of Faith Again it is not enough for you to say That he believed other Articles of Faith besides these in the Creed but that he made them a Rule of Faith together with the sense of Scripture 3. All this while here is not one word of Tradition as the ground on which these Articles of Faith were to be believed If this therefore be your way of answering I know none will contend with you for fine shuffling What follows concerning the right sense of the Article of the Descent of Christ into Hell since you say You will not much trouble your self about it as being not Fundamental either in his Lordships sense or ours I look on that expression as sufficient to excuse me from undertaking so needless a trouble as the examining the several senses of it since you acknowledge That no one determinate sense is Fundamental and therefore not pertinent to our business Much less is that which follows concerning Mr. Rogers his Book and Authority in which and that which depends upon it I shall only give you your own words for an Answer That truly I conceive it of small importance to spend much time upon this subject and shall not so far contradict my judgement as to do that which I think when it is done is to very little purpose Of the same nature is that of Catharinus for it signifies nothing to us whether you account him an Heretick or no who know Men are not one jot more or less Heretick for your accounting them to be so or not You call the Bishop your good friend in saying That all Protestants do agree with the Church of England in the main Exceptions which they joyntly take against the Roman Church as appears by their several Confessions For say you by their agreeing in this but in little or nothing else they sufficiently shew themselves enemies to the true Church which is one and only one by Vnity of Doctrine from whence they must needs be judged to depart by reason of their Divisions As good a friend as you say his Lordship was to you in that saying of his I am sure you ill requite him for his Kindness by so palpable a falsification of his words and abuse of his meaning And all that Friendship you pretend lyes only in your leaving out that part of the Sentence which takes away all that you build on the rest For where doth his Lordship say That the Protestants only agree in their main Exceptions against the Roman Church and not in their Doctrines Nay doth he not expresly say That they agree in the chiefest Doctrines as well as main Exceptions which they take against the Church of Rome as appears by their several Confessions But you very conveniently to your purpose and with a fraud suitable to your Cause leave out the first part of agreement in the chiefest Doctrines and mention only the latter lest your Declamation should be spoiled as to your Unity and our Disagreements But we see by this by what means you would perswade men of both by Arts and Devices fit only to deceive such who look only on the appearance and outside of things and yet even there he that sees not your growing Divisions is a great stranger to the Christian world Your great Argument of the Vnity of your party because
sifted were it for no other end but to lay open the juglings and impostures of your way of resolving Faith Which we now come more closely to the discovery of for as you tell us The Bishop propounding diverse wayes of resolving the Question first falls to the attaquing your way who prove it by Tradition and authority of the Church And his first onset is so successful that it makes you visibly recoyle and withdraw your self into so untenable a Shelter as exposeth you to all the attempts which any adversary would desire to make upon you For whereas you are charged by his Lordship with running into the most absurd kind of argumentation viz. by proving the Scriptures infallible by Tradition and that Tradition infallible by Scripture you think to escape that Circle by telling us That you prove not the Churches Infallibility by the Scripture but by the motives of credibility belonging to the Church This then being your main principle which your following discourse is built upon and in your judgement the only probable way to avoid the Circle that you may not think I am afraid of encountering you in your greatest strength I dare put the issue of the cause upon this Promise that besides the weak proofs you bring for the thing it self which shall after be considered if this way of yours be not chargeable with all the absurdities such an attempt is capable of I will be content to acknowledge what you say to be true which is That your way of resolving Faith hath no difficulty at all and that ours is insuperably hard which I think are as hard terms as can be imposed upon me Now there are two grand Absurdities which any vindication of an Opinion are subject to first If it be manifestly unreasonable and 2. If supposing it true it doth not effect what it was intended for now these two I undertake to make good against this way of your resolving Faith that it is guilty of the highest unreasonableness and that supposing it true you are in a circle as much as before 1. First I begin with the unreasonableness of it which is so great that I know not whether I may abstain from calling it ridiculous but that I may not seem to follow you in asserting confidently and proving weakly it will be necessary throughly to examine the grounds on which your opinion stands and then raise our batteries against it Three grand principles your discourse relyes upon which are your postulata in order to the resolving Faith 1. That it is necessary to the believing the Scriptures to be the Word of God with a Divine Faith that it be built on the infallible testimony of the Church 2. That your Church is that Catholick Church whose testimony is Infallible 3. That this Infallibility is to be known and assented to upon the motives of credibility These three I suppose if your confused discourse were reduced to method would be freely acknowledged by your self to be the Principles on which your resolution of Faith depends And although I am sufficiently assured of the falseness of your two first Principles as will appear in the sequel of this discourse yet that which I have now particularly undertaken is the unreasonableness of resolving Faith upon these Principles taken together viz. That the Infallible Testimony of your Church is the only Foundation for Divine Faith and that this Infallibility can be known only by the Motives of Credibility If then in this way of resolving Faith you require Assent beyond all proportion of evidence if you run into the same Absurdities you would seem to avoid if you leave men more uncertain in their Religion than you found them you cannot certainly excuse this way from unreasonableness and each of these I undertake to make good against this way of yours whereby you would assure men of the Truth and Divinity of the Scriptures 1. An Assent is hereby required beyond all proportion or degree of evidence for you require an Infallible Assent only upon Probable grounds which is as much as requiring Infallibility in the conclusion where the premises are only probable Now that you require an Assent Infallible to the nature of Faith appears by the whole series of your Discourse for to this very end you require Infallibility in the Testimony of your Church because otherwise you say Our Faith would be uncertain it is plain then you require an Infallible Assent in Faith and it is as plain that this Assent according to you can be built only upon probable grounds for you acknowledge the motives of Credibility to be no more than such yet those are all the grounds you give why the Church should be believed Infallible If you say That which makes the Assent Infallible is that Infallibility which is in the Churches Testimony I reply That this is a most unreasonable thing to go about to establish an Infallible Assent meerly because the Testimony is supposed to be in it self Infallible For Assent is not according to the Objective Certitude of things but the evidence of them to our Vnderstandings For is it possible to assent to the truth of a Demonstration in a demonstrative manner because any Mathematician tells one The thing is demonstrable for in that case the Assent is not according to the Evidence of the thing but according to the opinion such a person hath of him who tells him It is demonstrable Nay supposing that person infallible in saying so yet if the other hath no means to be infallibly assured that he is so such a ones Assent is as doubtful as if he were not infallible Therefore supposing the Testimony of your Church to be really infallible yet since the Means of believing it are but probable and prudential the Assent cannot be according to the nature of the Testimony considered in it self but according to the reasons which induce me to believe such a Testimony infallible And in all such cases where I believe one thing for the sake of another my Assent to the Object believed is according to my Assent to the Medium on which I believe it for by the means of that the other is conveyed to our minds As our sight is not according to the light in the body of the Sun but that which presseth upon our Organs of sense So that supposing your Churches Testimony to be in it self infallible if one may be deceived in judging whether your Church be infallible or no one may be deceived in such things which he believes upon that supposed Infallibility It being an impossibility that the Assent to the matters of Faith should rise higher or stand firmer than the Assent to the Testimony is upon which those things are believed Now that one may be deceived according to your own principles in judging whether the Church be Infallible appears by this That you have no other means to prove the Infallibility of your Church but only probable and prudential Motives For I desire to know
Reason For I look upon all these Assertions to serve you in no other capacity than as excursions from the matter in hand and therefore I shall not gratifie you so far as particularly to examine them For all then that hath been yet produced by you his Lordships Argument remains good that according to your Principles the Churches Testimony must be made the Formal Object of Faith and I am the more confirmed in it by the weakness of your evasions and I hope I have now made good those words which you challenge his Lordship for That it were no hard thing to prove it The next Absurdity charged upon you by his Lordship is That all the Authorities of Fathers Councils nay of Scripture too must be finally resolved into the Authority of the present Roman Church And though they would seem to have us believe the Fathers and the Church of old yet they will not have us take their Doctrine from their own writings or the Decrees of Councils because as they say We cannot know by reading them what their meaning was but from the infallible Testimony of the present Roman Church teaching by Tradition And this he tells you is the cunning of this devise To which you answer By what hath been said it appears That there is no device or cunning at all either in taking away any thing due to the Fathers Councils or Scripture or in giving too much to the Tradition of the present Church For we acknowledge all due respect to the Fathers and as much to speak modestly as any of our adversaries party But they must pardon us if we prefer the general interpretation of the present Church before the result of any mans particular Phansie As for Scripture we ever extol it above the Definitions of the Church yet affirm it to be in many places so obscure that we cannot be certain of its true sense without the help of a living infallible Judge to determine and declare it which can be no other than the present Church And what we say of Scripture may with proportion be applied to Ancient General Councils For though we willingly submit to them all yet where they happen to be obscure in matters requiring Determination we seek the assistance and direction of the same living Infallible Rule viz. the Tradition or the Sentence of the present Church The Question is Supposing your Churches Testimony to be infallible without which we can have no Assurance of what Fathers Scriptures and Councils say What Authority remains among you to any or all of these And it is not what respect you tell us you give them for you may as easily speak as believe contradictions but what is really left to them if your Opinion concerning the present Churches Infallibility be true And he that cannot see the cunning of this Device of resolving all into the Authority of the present Roman Church will never understand the interest of your Church but it seems you apprehend it so much as not to seem to do it and have too much cunning to confess it But this must not be so easily passed over this being one of the grand Artifices of your Church to make a great noise with Fathers Scriptures and Councils among those most who understand them least when your selves resolve them all into the present Churches Testimony Which is first to gagge them and then bid them speak First For the Fathers you say You acknowledge all due respect to them but the Question is What kind of respect that is which can be due to them when let them speak their minds never so plainly and agree in what they please and deliver what they will as the Judgement of the Church yet all this can give us no Assurance at all on your Principles unless your Church doth infallibly determine the same way What then do the Fathers signifie with you Doth the Infallibility of your Churches Definition depend on the consent of the Fathers No you tell us She is supernaturally assisted by the Holy Ghost and if so I suppose the judgement of the Fathers is not that which she relyes on But it may be you will say This supernatural Assistance directs the Church to that which was the Judgement of the Fathers in all Ages This were something indeed if it could be proved But then I would never read the Fathers to know what their mind is but aske your Church what they meant And though your Church delivers that as their sense which is as opposite as may be both to their words and judgements yet this is part of the respect due to them not to believe whatever they say themselves but what your Church tells us they say A most compendious way for interpreting Fathers and making them sure not to speak any thing against your Church Therefore I cannot but commend the ingenuity of Cornelius Mussus the Bishop of Bitonto who spake that out which more wary men are contented onely to think Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uni summo Pontitifici crediderim in his quae mysteria fidei tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Hieronymis Gregoriis That I may deal freely saith he I would sooner believe the Pope in matters of Faith than a thousand Augustines Hieromes and Gregories Bravely said and like a man that did heartily believe the Pope's Infallibility And yet no more than every one will be forced to do that understands the Consequence of his own Principles And therefore Alphonsus à Castro was not to be blamed for preferring an Epistle of Anacletus though counterfeit because Pope before Augustine Hierome or any other however holy or learned These men understood themselves and the interest of their Church And although the rest of them make finer leggs to the Fathers than these do yet when they seem to cross their way and entrench upon their Church they find not much kinder entertainment for them We may guess at the rest by two of them men of great note in their several waies the one for Controversies the other for his Commentaries viz. Bellarmine and Maldonate and let us see when occasion serves how rudely they handle the Fathers If S. Cyprian speaks against Tradition it was saith Bellarmine In defence of his errour and therefore no wonder if he argued after the manner of erroneous persons If he opposeth Stephen the Bishop of Rome in the business of Rebaptization He seemeth saith he To have erred mortally in it If S. Ambrose pronounce Baptism in the name of Christ to be valid without the naming other Persons in the Trinity Bellarmine is not afraid to say That in his judgement his Opinion is false If S. Chrysostome saith That it is better not to be present at the Eucharist than to be present and not receive it I say saith Bellarmine That Chrysostome as at other times went beyond his bounds in saying so If S. Augustine expound a place of Scripture not to his mind
cannot be owned as an Apostolical Tradition 2. That what you call an unwritten Word must be something doctrinal so you call them your self doctrinal Traditions i. e. such as contain in them somewhat dogmatical or necessary to be believed by us and thence it was this Controversie rose from the Dispute concerning the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith Whether that contained all God's Word or all matters to be believed or no or Whether there were not some Objects of Faith which were never written but conveyed by Tradition 3. That what is thus doctrinal must be declared by the Church to be an Apostolical Tradition which you in terms assert According then to these Rules we come to examine the Evidences by you produced for such an unwritten Word For which you first produce several Instances out of S. Austin of such things which were in his time judged to be such i. e. doctrinal Traditions derived from the Apostles and have ever since been conserved and esteemed such in the whole Church of Christ. The first you instance in is that we now treat That Scripture is the Word of God for which you propose the known place wherein he affirms he should not believe the Gospel but for the Authority of the Church moving him thereto But this proves nothing to your purpose unless you make it appear that the Authority of the Church could not move him to believe the Gospel unless that Authority be supposed to be an unwritten Word For I will suppose that S. Austin or any other rational man might be sufficiently induced to believe the Gospel on the account of the Churches Authority not as delivering any doctrinal Tradition in the nature of an unwritten Word but as attesting that Vniversal Tradition which had been among all Christians concerning it Which Universal Tradition is nothing else but a conveying down to us the judgement of sense and reason in the present case For the Primitive Christians being best able to judge as to what Authentick Writings came from the Apostles not by any unwritten Word but by the use of all moral means it cannot reasonably be supposed that the successive Christians should imbezzle these Authentick Records and substitute others in the place of them When therefore Manichaeus pretended the Authenticalness of some other writings besides those then owned by the Church S. Austin did no more than any reasonable man would do in the like case viz. appeal to the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church upon the account of which he saies He was induced to believe the Gospel it self i. e. not so much the Doctrine as the Books containing it But of this more largely elsewhere I can hardly excuse you from a falsification of S. Austin's meaning in the ensuing words which you thus render If any clear Testimony were brought out of Scripture against the Church he would neither believe the Scripture nor the Church whereas it appears by the words cited in your own Margin his meaning is only this If you can find saith he something very plain in the Gospel concerning the Apostleship of Manichaeus you will thereby weaken the Authority of those Catholicks who bid me that I should not believe you whose Authority being weakned neither can I believe the Gospel because through them I believed it Is here any like what you said or at least would seem to have apprehended to be his meaning which is plainly this If against the consent of all those Copies which the Catholick Christians received those Copies should be found truer which have in them something of the Apostleship of Manichaeus this must needs weaken much the Authority of the Catholick Church in its Tradition whom he adhered to against the Manichees and their Authority being thus weakned his Faith as to the Scriptures delivered by them must needs be much weakned too To give you an Instance of a like nature The Mahumetans pretend that in the Scripture there was anciently express mention of their Prophet Mahomet but that the Christians out of hatred of their Religion have erased all those places which spake of him Suppose now a Christian should say If he should find in the Gospel express mention of Mahomet's being a Prophet it would much weaken the Authority of the whole Christian Church which being so weakned it must of necessity weaken the Faith of all those who have believed our present Copies Authentick upon the account of the Christian Churches Authority Is not this plainly the case S. Austin speaks of and Is it any more than any man's reason will tell him Not that the Churches Authority is to be relyed on as judicially or infallibly but as rationally delivering such an Universal Tradition to us And might not S. Austin on the same reason as well believe the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel when they were both equally delivered by the same Universal Tradition What you have gained then to your purpose from these three citations out of S. Austin in your first Instance I cannot easily imagine Your second Tradition is That the Father is not begotten of any other person S. Austin's words are Sicut Patrem in illis libris nusquam Ingenitum legimus tamen dicendum esse defenditur We never read in the Scriptures that the Father is unbegotten and yet it is defended that we must say so And had they not good reason with them to say so who believed that he was the Father by way of exclusion of such a kind of Generation as the Eternal Son of God is supposed to have But Must this be an Instance of a doctrinal Tradition containing some Object of Faith distinct from Scripture Could any one whoever believed the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in Scripture believe or imagine any other that though it be not in express terms set down in Scripture yet no one that hath any conceptions of the Father but this is implied in them If it be therefore a Tradition because it is not expresly in Scripture Why may not Trinity Hypostasis Person Consubstantiality be all unwritten Traditions as well as this You will say Because though the words be not there yet the sense is and I pray take the same Answer for this of the Father's being unbegotten Your third is Of the perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary This indeed S. Austin saith is to be believed fide integra but he saith not divinâ but Do you therefore make this a doctrinal Tradition and an unwritten Word If you make it a doctrinal Tradition you must shew us what Article of Faith is contained in it that it was not looked on as an unwritten Word will appear by the disputations of those Fathers who writ most eagerly about it who make it their design to prove it out of Scripture Those who did most zealously appear against the Opinion of Helvidius were S. Hierom and S. Ambrose of the Latin Church S. Austin only mentions it in
the places by you cited Of the Greek Church Epiphanius and S. Basil. And yet every one of these contends to have it proved out of Scripture S. Hierom enters his dispute against Helvidius upon those terms of confuting him out of Scripture and towards the conclusion of that discourse see what a friend S. Hierom is to doctrinal Traditions As saith he we deny not the things which are written so we embrace not the things which are not written We believe the Incarnation because we read it we believe not the Marriage of Mary after her delivery because we read it not St. Ambrose in his Epistle to Theophilus and Anysius where he first mentions this Opinion argues against it wholly from the Testimony of Scripture and the unreasonableness of the thing To the same purpose Epiphanius discourseth of this subject whose utmost Arguments are only probabilities Whether the Antidicomariani were the same with Helvidians as S. Austin supposeth Or Whether they were the Disciples of Apollinarius who broached the same Doctrine in the East at the time Helvidius did in the West as others suppose is not material to our purpose but this latter seems to be the Opinion of Epiphanius Who in his Epistle written in Confutation of that Opinion chargeth the first Authours of it with great Ignorance of the Scriptures and urgeth many places to prove the perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary and therefore did not look on it as an unwritten Word St. Basil in his discourse concerning the Humane Generation of Christ falls upon this Subject and goes about to prove it from the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which saith he although it seems to speak some circumscription of time yet it really denotes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an indefinite time as in that I will be with you alwaies to the end of the world But he ushers in this discourse with this remarkable Expression Although this be no hinderance to the Doctrine of Piety for till the Oeconomy of her delivery was accomplished her Virginity was necessary but what became of it afterwards is not pertinent to this mystery however because the ears of those who love Christ will hardly entertain this that Mary ceased to be a Virgin we suppose these proofs sufficient for it Judge then whether S. Basil did believe this to be a Doctrine of Faith or an unwritten Word This Testimony Fronto Ducaeus is much troubled with and would go about to prove this to be an Article of Faith from the Councils of Constantinople and the Lateran in the first of which she is only called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But doth that note it to be an Article of Faith As for his evasion of this Testimony it is so impertinent that I shall not repeat it although he voucheth Vasquez for the Authour of it It cannot be denied but that afterwards S. Basil produceth a Tradition for it concerning Zachary's placing the Virgin Mary after her delivery among the Virgins for which he was slain of the Jews between the Temple and the Altar But we may guess at the credit of this Tradition by what S. Hierom saith of it that it came ex Apocryphorum somniis and withall gives a sufficient lash at all Traditions by reason of this in the next words Hoc quia de Scripturis non habet auctoritatem eâdem facilitate contemnitur quâ probatur Which having no Authority from the Scriptures it is as easily contemned as produced And think you not then that S. Hierom was a great friend to your doctrinal Traditions and unwritten Word But say you still The Virginity of Mary must be an Article of Faith because those who denied it are called Hereticks and S. Augustine calls Helvidius his Opinion blasphemy But though Helvidius be listed among the Hereticks yet I suppose you will not say that all who are listed in those Catalogues are defined to be Hereticks by the Catholick Church It is very apparent that any one who seemed to broach any new fancies and thereby disturbed the Churches Peace were called Hereticks by them And Vasquez confesseth that Aquinas calls it an Errour and not an Heresie in Helvidius If it were so he was not the first Authour of it for Tertullian is not only cited by Helvidius for it and S. Hierom casts away his Testimony as of a man out of the Church but Vasquez confesseth he delivers it so often that Pamelius could make no antidote for those places One would therefore think that one so near the Apostles as Tertullian was might easily have learned such a Tradition and so great a friend to Virginity as he was while a Montanist should not have been apt to believe the contrary That which was accounted Blasphemy in Helvidius was the rashness of his assertion which seemed dishonourable to the Blessed Virgin and not as though he did thereby overthrow any Article of Faith For the other part of your Tradition that she was a Virgin in the Birth of Christ you will find it a greater difficulty to make it out to have been believed as a Tradition much less as an unwritten Word For not only Tertullian but Ignatius Irenaeus Origen Epiphanius Ambrose Theophylact oppose you in it and judge you then whether this were owned as a constant Tradition or no. But it is not worth while to insist upon it Your fourth Instance is concerning the Rebaptization of Hereticks Concerning which two things are to be considered The Custome it self and the Right and Law on which that Custome was grounded In the places by you cited out of S. Austin it is plain he speaks of the Custome and Practice of the Church which saith he did not use the Iteration of Baptism which Custome he believed did come from Apostolical Tradition as many other things which are not found in the writings of the Apostles nor in following Councils yet because they are observed by the Vniversal Church are believed to be delivered and commended by them To the same purpose is the other Testimony But what is this to doctrinal Traditions concerning matters of Faith That there were many Ecclesiastical Customes observed in the Church as Apostolical Traditions I deny not but that is not our present Question If you therefore enquire into that which is only doctrinal in this case concerning the right and lawfulness of Practice in this case that he fixeth wholly upon the Scriptures The Practice of the Church in admitting Hereticks without baptizing them again might be known by Tradition but whether the Church did well or ill in it must be by S. Austin's own confession determined out of Scripture And in that latter place by you cited there is mentioned no such thing as an unwritten Word or that the Apostles had left any command that Hereticks should not be baptized again Nihil quidem exinde praeceperunt Apostoli are his own words there being then neither written nor unwritten Word for
it S. Austin takes the likeliest course he could think of which was from the Custome of the Church to judge most probably what was most agreeable to the Apostles minds But still when he comes to urge most home against the Donatists he makes his recourse to the Scriptures And offers to prove the matter in dispute from them and would have all tryed by the ballance of the Lord. And expresly saith It is against the Lords command that those who have had lawful Baptism already should be rebaptized So that we see S. Augustine did not himself think it a sufficient proof of Apostolical Tradition that it was a Custome of the Church unless he did likewise produce certain evidence out of Scripture for the confirmation of it Neither then will your fourth Instance prove what it was brought for Your fifth concerning Infants Baptism you have given us occasion to consider largely already your sixth depends upon that your seventh is only a rite of the Church To your eighth I answer Though the Tradition of the Church be a great confirmation of the Apostolical Practice in observation of the Lords day yet that very Practice and the ground of it are sufficiently deduced from Scripture Among all these Instances therefore we are yet to seek for such a doctrinal Tradition as makes an unwritten Word But methinks an Authour who would seem so much versed in S. Augustine might among all these Instances have found out one more which would have looked more like a doctrinal Tradition than most of these which is the necessity of the Eucharist to baptized Infants The places are so many and so express in him concerning it that it would be a needless task to produce them I shall only therefore referr you to your Espencaeus who hath made some collection of them When you have viewed them I pray bethink your self of some convenient Answer to them which either must be by asserting that S. Augustine might be deceived in judging of Doctrinal and Apostolical Traditions and then to what purpose are your eight Instances out of him Or else that might be accounted an Apostolical Tradition in one age which may not in another and then since according to your judgement the present Church is infallible in every age that was infallibly an Apostolical Tradition in one age which infallibly is not so in another Which leaves us in a greater dispute than ever what these Apostolical Traditions are when the Church in several ages doth so much differ concerning them After you have in your way attempted to prove such unwritten Words or doctrinal Traditions you fall upon a high charge against his Lordship and not without a severe reflection on all Protestants in these words It is so natural to Protestants to build upon false grounds that they cannot enter into a Question without supposing a falshood so his Lordship here feeds his humour and obtrudes many It is well yet his Lordship meets with no worse entertainment than all Protestants do You think all Protestants still build upon false grounds because not super hanc Petram and that they still suppose falshoods because they suppose your Church fallible whether she undertakes to explain written or define unwritten Words But whether his Lordship feeds his humour in obtruding falshoods or you yours in calumniating will appear upon examination You say He makes Bellarmine and all Catholick Doctors maintain that whatever they please to call Tradition must presently be received by all as God's unwritten Word Upon which you go about to vindicate Bellarmine by repeating his distinctions concerning Traditions viz. That some are Divine others Apostolical and others Ecclesiastical and that some belong to Faith others to Manners But all this doth not serve your turn For 1. His Lordship doth not deny that Bellarmine useth these distinctions but reduceth all these several Traditions under the same common title de Verbo Dei non scripto and that his design therein is to impose upon unwary Readers that all the Traditions mentioned by him are God's unwritten Word Upon which his Lordship had good reason to go about to undeceive them and to make it appear so evidently as he hath done that Tradition and God's unwritten Word are not convertible terms both because there may be justly supposed to have been many unwritten Words which were never delivered over to the Church and that there are many things which go for Traditions in your Church which have no shadow of pretence from an unwritten Word 2. There may be yet further cunning in all this for although Bellarmine and you distinguish of Traditions Divine Apostolical and Ecclesiastical yet when you come to put the difference between these I suppose you would not leave it to every particular person to judge which of these Traditions is of these several natures but the Church must be judge of them So that a Tradition is Ecclesiastical when your Church will have it so that is when it is disused among you as the three dippings in Baptism the participation of Eucharists by Infants c. But when any Tradition is still in use by your Church then your Churches Practice being in this case a sufficient Definition as to all those things so used by your Church they must be accounted Apostolical if not Divine 3. Of what kind or nature soever these Traditions are supposed to be whether Divine Apostolical or Ecclesiastical prove any of them to contain any thing necessary for Faith and Salvation and you will then come near an unwritten Word Your Ecclesiastical Traditions you discard your self from being such inform us then what Divine and Apostolical Traditions those are which are founded on such an unwritten Word Whether any of your Ecclesiastical Traditions contradict God's Word or no is not here a place to examine we are now enquiring Whether there be any such thing as an unwritten Word at all which contains any matter necessary for us to believe or practise The only pretence you have here for it is That we believe by Divine Faith that Scripture is God's VVord and that there is no other VVord of God to assure us of this Point but the Tradition delivered to us by the Church and that such Tradition so delivered must be the unwritten VVord of God How far we are to believe Scriptures to be the VVord of God with Divine Faith will be throughly examined in its due time and likewise how far any VVord of God is necessary for the Foundation of this Faith only I cannot here but take notice what it is which makes a Tradition be the unwritten VVord of God and what becomes then of your former distinction concerning Traditions for we see that which makes them the VVord of God is their being delivered by the Church so that let their Authour Nature or Matter be what it will according to this Principle any Tradition being delivered by your Church becomes an unwritten VVord So I come to the second
Proposition 2. That the ground of believing any unwritten word is the Infallibility of your Church defining it to be so For you say As the Church was Infallible in defining what was written so is she also infallible in defining what was not written And so she can neither tradere non traditum nor can she be unfaithful to God in not faithfully keeping the depositum committed to her trust Neither can her Sons ever justly accuse her of the contrary but are bound to believe her Tradition because she being infallible the Tradition she delivers can never be against the Word of their Father The substance of all which is that which I laid down as your Proposition That the ground of believing any Tradition to be Apostolical or any unwritten word is your Churches Infallibility in defining it to be so Which being built on a Principle I have already manifested to be so fallacious and uncertain I might without further trouble quit my hands of it but I shall however shew how inconsistent this is with the Rules of the Ancients for discerning when Traditions are Apostolical and when not The great Rule we meet with among the Ancients for judging Apostolical Traditions is that of Vincentius Lyrinensis In ipsâ item Catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnoperè curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est hoc est enim verè proprieque Catholicum If this be a certain Rule to judge of Catholick and Apostolical Traditions by viz. That which hath been held every where alwaies and by all then the judgement of your Church cannot be the infallible definer of Apostolical Traditions unless you will suppose that your Church only can tell us what was held every where alwaies and by all And if your Church alone can infallibly determine what Traditions are Apostolical to what purpose should we be put to such a VVild-goose chase to enquire Vniversality Antiquity and Consent in all things which pretend to be Traditions But to any reasonable man as to any thing which pretends to be a matter necessary to be believed or practised which is not expresly revealed in Scripture this Rule of Vincentius seems very just and equitable that before we believe it necessary it be made appear that it was universally believed by Christians to be so and that in all ages And I assure you I am so far convinced of the reasonableness of this proposal that if you will make out any of those things controverted between us such as Invocation of Saints VVorship of Images Transubstantiation Adoration of the Eucharist Purgatory Indulgences the Pope's Supremacy c. by these Rules and make it appear to me that these were held by all Christian Churches at all times or have Antiquity Vniversality and Consent I shall be very inclinable to embrace what your Church would impose upon me But when I know how impossible a task this is I do not at all wonder that you should quit this formerly magnified saying of Vincentius and resolve all into the Infallibility of the present Church But hereby we see how far you are from the judgement of Antiquity as to this very point of the tryal of doctrinal Traditions since you can see no security any where but in your selves and your Churches Infallibility I will therefore reduce the Controversie yet shorter prove but this Infallibility of your Church in defining the written and unwritten VVord by these Rules of Vincentius Vniversality Antiquity and Consent and I will yield you all the rest But what unreasonable men are you if you must be Parties and Judges too or if we must believe an unwritten VVord because your Church is infallible and believe your Church infallible because that is an unwritten VVord And well may you call it so for search the whole Book of Scriptures and all the Records of the Primitive Church and you find nothing at all of it We see plainly then you are resolved to be tryed by none but your selves and so you are Catholicks because you say You are so and your Church infallible because she pretends to be so 3. That our belief of the Scriptures must be resolved into an unwritten VVord which is defined by your Church to be such This is that for whose sake all your other discourse is brought in and is the main thing to the purpose Although you pretend likewise to a power in your Church to declare what Christ said when he held his peace But Are you sure your Church will be infallible in that too For when his Lordship had said That where-ever Christ held his peace and that his words are not registred no man may dare without rashness to say They were these or these You very gravely add That his Lordship must give you leave to tell him you must bind up his whole assertion with this Proviso but according as the Church shall declare Your Church then must declare when Christ held his peace and when he did not when he spake so that others might hear him and when he did not when any thing was taken notice of that he said and when not But when it is apparent Christ both spake and did much more than ever was written how well doth your Church acquit her Office in being Christ's Remembrancer And therefore I believe your Church will be guilty of the same rashness with any private person in S. Augustine's Opinion In offering to determine what Christ said when either he held his peace or his words are not registred As for those things which you mention for Traditions not contrary to God's written Word which yet are not an unwritten Word such as the Ceremonies of Baptism by you mentioned they are therefore not pertinent to our purpose because they are only rites and ceremonies and our discourse is about doctrinal Traditions neither yet if I would spend time in the enquiry could you derive them from Apostolical Tradition notwithstanding what either you or Bellarmine say But the substance of all you have to say pertinent to your purpose is That though every Tradition be not God's unwritten VVord yet it being necessary for us to believe the Scripture to be the VVord of God we must believe it either for some word written or unwritten or we shall have no Divine Faith at all of the Point because all Divine Faith must rely upon some VVord of God This being a great novelty with you that is something like Argumentation it obliges me to take a little more particular notice of it Any one that considers the force of this Argument will find that it lyes wholly upon your notion of Divine Faith for it appearing unreasonable to you that our belief that the Scripture is the Word should be resolved into the written Word it self therefore you find out an unwritten VVord of God for a Divine Faith to fix it self upon which can be nothing but some VVord of God To this therefore I
produced is That a Tradition may be known to be such by the Light it hath in it self in which you say you find not one word of Tradition being known by its own Light But who are so blind as those who will not see I pray what difference is there between a Tradition being known to be such by its own Light and a Tradition being known by its own Light Yes say you known to be such implies that is to be God's unwritten Word but are not doctrinal Traditions and an unwritten Word with you the same thing Can therefore a Tradition be known to be an unwritten Word by its own Light and not be known to be a Tradition by its own Light Nay How can it possibly be known to be an unwritten Word unless it first appears to be a Tradition for Tradition containing under it both those that are unwritten Words and those that are not it must in order of nature be known to be a Tradition before it can be known to be the other As I must first know you to be a living Creature before I can know you to be a reasonable Creature and I may much sooner know the one than the other You do therefore very well when you have given us such occasion for sport to give us leave to laugh at it as you do in your next words But before you leave this point you have some graver matter to take notice of which is that you desire the reader to consider what the Relator grants viz. That the Church now admits of St. James and St. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse which were not received for diverse years after the rest of the New Testament From which you wisely inferr That if some Books are now to be admitted for Canonical which were not alwayes acknowledged to be such then upon the same authority some Books may now be received into the Canon which were not so in Ruffinus his time And therefore the Bishop doth elsewhere unjustly charge the Church of Rome that it had erred in receiving more Books into the Canon then were received in Ruffinus his time To which I Answer 1. By your own confession then the Church of Rome doth now receive into the Canon more Books then she did in Ruffinus his time from whence I enquire whether the present Church of Rome were Infallible in Ruffinus his time in determining the Canon of the Scripture If not then the present Church is no Infallible propounder of the Word of God and then all your discourse comes to nothing If she were Infallible then she cannot be now for now she determins otherwise as to a main point of Faith than she did then unless you will say your Church can be Infallible in determining both parts of a contradiction to be true 2. Is the integrity of the Canon of Scripture an Apostolical tradition or no I doubt not but you will say It is if so Whether were these Books which you admit now and were not admitted then known to be of the Canon by this Apostolical tradition If not by what right come they now to be of the Canon if so then was not your Church in Ruffinus's time much to seek for her Infallibility in defining what was Apostolical tradition and what not 3. Your main principle on which the lawfulness of adding more books to the Canon of the Scripture is built is That it is in the power of your Church judicially and authoritatively to determine what books belong to the Canon of the Scripture and what not which I utterly deny For it is impossible that your Church or any in the world can by any definition make that Book to be Divine which was not so before such a definition For the Divinity of the Book doth meerly arise from Divine revelation Can your Church then make that to be a Divine revelation which was not so All that any Church in the world can do in this case is not to constitute any new Canon which were to make Books Divine which were not so but to use its utmost diligence and care in searching into the authenticalness of those Copy's which have any pretence to be of the Canon and whether they did originally proceed from such persons as we have reason to believe had an immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost and according to the evidence they find the Church may declare and give in her verdict For the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And that is the true reason why the Books of the New Testament were gradually received into the Canon and some a great while after others as St. James St. Jude the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse because at first the Copyes being not so publickly dispersed there was not that occasion ministred to the Church for examination of them upon which when by degrees they came to be more publick it caused scruples in many concerning them because they appeared no sooner especially if any passages in them seemed to gratifie any of the Sects then appearing as the Epistle to the Hebrews the Novatians and the Apocalypse the Millenary's But when upon a through search and examination of all circumstances it did appear that these Copyes were authentical and did originally proceed from Divine Persons then they came to be admitted and owned for such by the Vniversal Church which we call being admitted into the Canon of the Scripture Which I take to be the only true and just account of that which is called the constituting the Canon of Scripture not as though either the Apostles met to do it or St. John intended any such thing by those words in the end of the Apocalypse for that Book being as much lyable to question as any how could that seal the Canon for all the rest much less that it was in the power of any Church or Council and least of all of the Pope to determine what was Canonical and what not but only that the Church upon examination and enquiry did by her Universal reception of these Books declare it self satisfied with the evidence which was produced that those were true and authentick Copyes which were abroad under such names or titles and that there was great reason to believe by a continued tradition from the age and time these Books were written in that they were written by such persons who were not only free from any design of imposture but gave the greatest Rational evidence that they had a more special and immediate assistance of Gods Spirit You see then to how little advantage to your Cause you made this digression As to the third way propounded for resolving the Question How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God viz. by the testimony of the Holy Ghost three things you object against the Bishops discourse about it First that his discourse
is roving and uncertain 2. That notwithstanding his brags he must have recourse to a private spirit himself 3. That though the Bishop would seem to deny it diverse eminent Protestants do resolve their Faith into the private spirit This being the substance of what you say I shall return a particular Answer to each of them For the first you tell us He delivers himself in such a roving way of discourse as signifies nothing in effect as to what he would drive at No that is strange when that which his Lordship drives at is to shew how far this opinion is to be allowed and how far not which he is so far from roving in that he clearly and distinctly propounds the state of the question and the resolution of it which in short is this If by the testimony of the spirit be meant any special revelation of a new object of Faith then he denies the truth of it at least in an ordinary way both because God never sends us to look for such a testimony and because it would expose men to the danger of Enthusiasms but if by the testimony of the Spirit be meant the habit or the act of Divine infused Faith by vertue of which they believe the object which appears credible then he grants the truth but denyes the pertinency of it because it is quite out of the state of the question which inquires only after a sufficient means to make this object credible against all impeachment of folly and temerity in believing whether men do actually believe or not And withal adds that the question is of such outward and evident means as other men may take notice of as well as our selves Judge you now whether this may be called roving if it be so I can freely excuse you from it in all the discourses I have met with in your Book who abhorre nothing more then a true stating and methodical handling any question But yet say you the Bishop cannot free himself from that imputation of recurring to the private Spirit against any that should press the business home Sure you refer us here to some one else who is able to press a business home for you never attempt it your self and instead of that only produce a large testimony out of A. C. That he did not acquit the Bishop wholly of this Whether he did or no is to little purpose and yet those very words which his Lordship cites are in your testimony produced out of him Only what you add more from him that he must be driven to it that his Lordship denies and neither A. C. or you have been able to prove it But though the Bishop seems not only to deny any such private revelation himself but will not confess that any Protestants hold it yet you say there can be no doubt in this since Calvin and Whitaker do both so expresly own it But according to those principles laid down before both these testimonies are easily answered For 1. Neither of them doth imply any private revelation of any new object but only a particular application of the evidence appearing in Scripture to the conscience of every Believer 2. That these testimonies do not speak of the external evidence which others are capable of but of the internal satisfaction of every ones conscience Therefore Calvin saith Si conscientiis optimè consultum volumus c. if we will satisfie our own consciences not If we will undertake to give a sufficient reason to others of our Faith So Whitaker Esse enim dicimus certius illustrius testimonium quo nobis persuadeatur hos libros esse sacros c. There is a more certain and noble testimony by which we may be perswaded that these Books are sacred viz. that of the Holy Ghost 3. Neither of these testimonies affirm any more than the more judicious Writers among your selves do Your Canus asserts the necessity of an internal efficient cause by special assistance of the Spirit moving us to believe besides and beyond all humane authorities and motives which of themselves are not sufficient to beget Faith and this a little after he calls Divinum quoddam lume◠incitans ad credendum A divine light moving us to believe and again Interius lumen infusum à Spirit◠Sancto An inward light infused by the Spirit of God There is nothing in the sayings of the most rigid Protestants is more hard to explain or vindicate from a private revelation then this is if as you say one would press it home Nay hath not your own Stapleton Calvins very phrase of the necessity of the secret testimony of the Spirit that one believe the testimony and judgement of the Church concerning Scripture And is there not then as much danger of Enthusiasm in believing the Testimony of your Church as in believing the Scriptures Nay doth not your Gregory de Valentiâ rather go higher then the testimonies by you produced out of Calvin and Whitaker on this very subject in the beginning of his discourse of the resolution of Faith It is God himself saith he in the first place which must convince and perswade the minds of men of the truth of the Christian Doctrine and consequently of the Sacred Scriptures by some inward instinct and impulse as it appears from Scripture it self is fully explained by Prosper If you will then undertake to clear this inward instinct and impulse upon the minds of men whereby they are perswaded of the truth of Christianity and Scripture from Enthusiasm and a private spirit you may as easily do it for the utmost which is said by Calvin or Whitaker or any other Protestant Divine This therefore is only an argument of your desire to cavil and as such I will pass it over For what concerns the influence which the Spirit hath in the resolution of Faith it will be enquired into afterwards The last way mentioned in order to the resolution of Faith is that of Reason which his Lordship saith cannot be denyed to have some place to come in and prove what it can According to which he tells us no man can be hindred from weighing the tradition of the Church the inward motives in Scripture it self all testimonies within which seem to bear witness to it and in all this saith he there is no harm the danger is when a man will use no other scale but reason or prefer reason before any other scale Reason then can give no supernatural ground into which a man may resolve his Faith that the Scripture is the word of God infallibly yet Reason can go so high as it can prove that Christian Religion which rests upon the authority of this Book stands upon surer grounds of nature reason common equity and justice then any thing in the world which any Infidel or meer naturalist hath done doth or can adhere unto against it in that which he makes accounts or assumes as Religion to himself This
I will tell you my judgement How your Church comes to be called or accounted the Catholick Church T. C. For this though it seems strange to the Hereticks how a part should be called or accountd the whole yet to all true Catholicks who must wink hard that they may see the better we make no great difficulty of it for we tell them the Pope is Christs Vicar and it is the head which gives the denomination and so Catholick is nothing else but a name to denote persons who are in our Church and if they question this they thereby are out of the Church and so under damnation But for the sturdy Hereticks who deride our thunderbolts we are put to a greater trouble and are fain to gather all the citations of the Fathers against the poor Donatists and apply them to the Hereticks and what ever they say belongs to the Catholick Church we confidently arrogate it to our selves as though our Church now were the same with the Catholick Church then and chiefly we have the advantage of the Protestants by this that whatever corruptions they charge us with they had the good hap to be almost generally received at the time Luther appeared and upon this we thunder them with the succession and visibility of our Church as the Samaritans were much to blame they did not serve the Israelites so after their return from captivity for they had a continual succession in the same place and a greater visibility than the Israelites under their bondage but yet we had the advantage of them by a larger spread a longer prescription and a fairer shew Scept Sir I am hugely taken with these discourses of yours and easily perceive whatever they that believe Christian Religion to be true think that you are men of wit and parts and understand your Interest I mean your Religion I understand now throughly to what intent it is you say that Those who build their Faith on rational grounds go about to destroy Religion I confess you have taken the only way to reclaim me from any thing of Scepticism I suppose you understand my meaning as I do yours In this discourse I pretend not as you did to deliver his Lordships words and so wrong him by falsly imposing them on him in another sense then he intended them but collect from your former managery of this Controversie what your real sense and meaning is and how excellent a way this is instead of reclaiming Atheists to make them so If I have mistaken your meaning I pray speak more clearly and then we shall think you mean honestly but as long as you walk so much in the dark you will give us leave to suspect your design is either upon our purses or our Religion I now return to your church-Church-tradition You begin your sixth Section with a fair Supposition and carry it on accordingly which is of a Child brought up in your Church who is commanded to believe the Scriptures and all other Articles of Faith on the Authority of your Church whom you suppose to dye without once looking into the Scriptures Your question is Whether he had saving Faith or no if so then the Churches Authority is a sufficient ground for Infallible Faith if not then he had none at all and consequently could not be saved I answer We pry not into Divine secrets on which account we dare not pronounce of the final condition of such who through ignorance cannot be acquainted with Gods written Word we therefore say that an hearty assent to the Doctrine of the Gospel is the Faith which God requires and if this Faith lead men to obedience to Gods will we assert the sufficiency of it for salvation and not otherwise for Faith is not therefore saving because built on an Infallible ground as you fondly seem to imagine but when it attains its end when it brings men to a hearty obedience to the precepts of the Gospel And if some among you may believe that which is in it self true but upon weak and insufficient grounds as the advantages of education which are much rather the foundation of the Faith of such a one as you speak of then any Infallibility supposed by him in the Church yet such and so great is the goodness of God that if a Faith standing on such grounds do attain its end that is make such a one Universally holy we deny not but God may accept of it for Salvation But still we say such a Faith is so far from being Infallible that it is not built on any sufficient or satisfactory ground for the motive of it is that which may be false as well as true for he that assents to any thing on the Authority of any Church before he doth judge whether her Authority be to be relyed on absolutely or no may believe a falshood assoon as truth upon that Authority and the more he makes this his foundation the more he is in danger of being deceived As suppose a Child brought up in Turky and instructed in that Religion he is told that he must without examination believe Mahomets Alcoran to be Divine and he must neither doubt of this nor of any other Article of Faith universally received among Mahumetans may not such a one as invincibly believe the Authority of the Turkish Church if we may call it so as your Child doth the Authority of your Church Where then lies the difference you see plainly it cannot be in the Motive to Faith for the Authority is supposed equally Infallible in both but it lies in the evidence of truth in one Religion above the other and this requires something more then the Authority of the Church viz. judgement and diligent examination And then Faith is built on a sure ground Remember then that we enquire not what abatements God makes for the prejudices of education in believing or not believing any Religion nor how God intends to deal with them who through age or other invincible prejudices are uncapable of judging the evidence of truth in any Religion but what are the certain grounds of Faith which sober and understanding men may and ought to build their belief of true Religion upon But you proceed and suppose your young Christian to live and apply himself to study and becomes a learned man and then upon the Churches recommendation betakes himself to the reading the Scriptures upon which by the light he discovers in it he finds the Faith he had before was but a humane perswasion and not a Divine Faith and consequently that he had no saving Faith of any Article of Christian belief and so was out of the state of Salvation from whence you say will spring gripes and torture of spirit among Christians And why so What because they discern greater reason to believe then ever they did must they find gripes and torture of spirit I had thought the more light men had found i. e. the more reason for believing the more peace and
obtruded without possibility of amendment of them excuse your Church from Imposture if you can for my part I cannot nor any one else who throughly considers it For the second it will follow indeed that the Testimony of your Church is as much as nothing as to any infallible Foundation of Faith but yet it may be of great use for conveying Vniversal Tradition to us and so by that delivering the Scripture into our hands as the infallible Rule of Faith To the third it by no means follows that there is nothing but the sole Letter of Scripture left to convince us of the Divine Authority of Scripture I hope the working Miracles fulfilling Prophecies the nature and reasonableness of the Doctrine of Scriptures are all left besides the bare letter of Scripture and these we say are sufficient to make us believe that the Scripture contains the infallible Word of God Now your profound Christian begins to reflect on the Bishops way which is say you That the Testimony of the Church is humane and fallible and that the belief of the Scripture rests upon the Scripture it self But it will be more to our purpose to hear the Bishop deliver his own mind than to hear you so lamely deliver it which in short he summs up thus A man is probably led by the Authority of the present Church as by the first informing inducing perswading means to believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But when he hath studied considered and compared this Word with its self and with other writings with the help of ordinary grace and a mind morally induced and reasonably perswaded by the voice of the Church the Scripture then gives greater and higher Reasons of Credibility to it self than Tradition alone could give And then he that believes resolves his last and full Assent that Scripture is of Divine Authority into internal Arguments found in the Letter it self though found by the help of Tradition without and Grace within This is the substance of his Lordship's Opinion against which we shall now consider what your Discourser hath to object 1. The first is from the case of ignorant and illiterate persons such who either through want of learning could not read the Scripture and examine or else made little use of it because they supposed they might have infallible Faith without it What then becomes of millions of such souls both in former and present times To that I answer Although the Ignorance and carelesness of men in a matter of so great consequence be so great in all ages as is not to be justified because all men ought to endeavour after the highest waies of satisfaction in a matter so nearly concerning them and it is none of the least things to be blamed in your Church that she doth so much countenance this ignorance and neglect of the Scripture yet for such persons who either morally or invincibly are hindered from this capacity of examining Scripture there may be sufficient means for their Faith to be built upon For although such illiterate persons cannot themselves see and read the Scripture yet as many as do believe do receive the Doctrine of it by that sense by which Faith is conveyed that is Hearing and by that means they have so great certainty as excludes all doubting that such Doctrines and such matters of fact are contained in these Books by which they come to the understanding of the nature of this Doctrine and are capable of judging concerning the Divinity of it For the Light spoken of in Scripture is not a Light to the eye but to the mind now the mind is capable of this Light as well by the ear as by the eyes The case then of such honest illiterate persons as are not capable of reading Scripture but diligently and devoutly hear it read to them is much of the same nature with those who heard the Apostles preach this Doctrine before it was writ For whatever was an Argument to such to believe the Apostles in what they spake becomes an Argument to such who hear the same things which are certainly conveyed to us by an unquestionable Tradition So that nothing hinders but such illiterate persons may resolve their Faith into the same Doctrine and Motives which others do only those are conveyed to them by the ear which are conveyed to others by the eyes But if you suppose persons so rude and illiterate as not to understand any thing but that they are to believe as the Church believes do you if you can resolve their Faith for them for my part I cannot and am so far from it that I have no reason to believe they can have any 2. The second thing objected by your discourser is That if the Churches judgement be fallible then much more ones own judgement is fallible And therefore if notwithstanding all the care and pains taken by the Doctors of the Church their perswasion was only humane and fallible What reason hath any particular person to say That he is divinely and infallibly certain by his reading the Scripture that it is Divine Truth But 1. Is there no difference between the Churches Perswasion and the Churches Tradition Doth the Bishop deny but the perswasion of the Doctors of the Church is as infallible as that of any particular person But this he denies that they can derive that Infallibility of the grounds of their Perswasion into their Tradition so as those who are to receive it on their Testimony may be competent Judges of it May we not then suppose their Tradition to be humane and fallible whose perswasion of what they deliver is established on infallible grounds As a Mathematician is demonstratively convinced himself of the Truth of any particular Problem but if he bids another believe it on his Testimony the other thereby hath no demonstrative evidence of the Truth of it but only so great moral evidence as the Testimony of that person carries along with it The case is the same here Suppose those persons in the Church in every Age of it have to themselves infallible evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture yet when they are to deliver this to be believed by others unless their Testimony hath infallible evidence in it men can never have more than humane or moral certainty of it 2. It doth not at all follow that if the Testimony of the Church be fallible no particular person can be infallibly assured of the Divinity of the Scripture unless this assurance did wholly depend upon that Testimony indeed if it did so the Argument would hold but otherwise it doth not at all Now you know the Bishop denies that the Faith of any particular person doth rest upon the judgement of the Church only he saith This may be a Motive and Inducement to men to consider further but that which they rely upon is that rational evidence which appears in the Scripture it self 3. He goes on and argues against this use of
Tradition thus If the Light of the Scripture be insufficient to shew it self unless it be introduced by the recommendation of the Church How came Luther Calvin Zuinglius Husse c. to discover this Light in it seeing they rejected the Authority of all visible Churches in the world c Sure your Discourser was not very profound in this that could not distinguish between the Authority of Vniversal Tradition and the Authority of the present visible Church or between the Testimony of the Church and the Authority of it Shew us where Luther Calvin c. did ever reject the Authority of an uncontrouled Vniversal Tradition such as that here mentioned concerning the Scriptures being the Word of God Shew us where they deny that Vse of the Testimony of those Churches whose Authority in imposing matters of Faith they denied which his Lordship asserts viz. to be a means to introduce men to the knowledge and belief of the Scritures and unless you shew this you do nothing 4. He argues against that Light in Scripture because it is not sufficient to distinguish Canonical Books from such as are not so For saies he Had not the Ancient Primitive Fathers in the first three hundred years as much reason and ability to find this Light in Scripture as any particular person Yet many Books which do appear to us to be God's Word by their Light did not appear to be so to them by it till they were declared such by the Catholick Church I answer 1. Where doth his Lordship ever say or pretend that any person by the Light contained in the Books can distinguish Books that are Canonical from such as are not All that can be discovered as to particular Books in question is the examination of the Doctrine contained in them by the series of that which is in the unquestionable Books for we know that God can never speak contradictions but still this will only serve to exclude such Books as contain things contrary but not to admit all which have no Doctrine contrary to Scripture 2. The reason why the Primitive Fathers questioned any Books that we do not was not because they could not discover that Light in them which we do for neither can we discover so much Light in any particular Book as meerly from thence to say It is Canonical but there was not sufficient evidence then appearing to them that those Copies did proceed from Apostolical persons and this was therefore only an Argument of that commendable care and caution which was in them lest any Book should pass for Canonical which was not really so 3. When the Catholick Church declared any controverted Book to be Canonical Did not the Church then see as much Light in it as we do but that Light which both the Church and we discover is not a discriminating Internal Light but an External Evidence from the sufficiency and validity of Testimony And such we have for the Canonical Books of the Old Testament and therefore you have no cause to quarrel with us for receiving them from the Jewish Synagogue For who I pray are so competent witnesses of what is delivered as they who received it and the Apostle tells us That to the Jews were committed the Oracles of God 5. Hence your discoursing Christian argues That if one take up the Scripture on the account of Tradition then if one should deny S. Matthew 's Gospel to be the written Word of God he could not be accounted an Heretick because it was not sufficiently propounded to him to be God's Word Whether such a person may be accounted a Heretick in your sense or no I am sure he is in S. Paul's because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-condemned and that for the very contrary reason to what you give because this is sufficiently propounded to him I pray tell me What way you would have such a thing sufficiently propounded as a matter to be believed that this is not propounded in Would you have an unquestionable evidence that this was writ by one of Christ's Apostles called S. Matthew so you have Would you have all the Churches of Christ agreed in this Testimony in all Ages from the Apostles times so you have Would you have it delivered to you by the Testimony of the present Church so you have What then is or can be wanting in order to a Proposition of it to be believed Why forsooth some infallible authoritative sentence of the present Church which shall make this an Object of Faith See what a different mould some mens minds are of from others For my part should I see or hear any Church in the world undertaking such an office as that I should be so far from thinking it more sufficiently propounded by it that I should not scruple to charge it with the greatest presumption and arrogance that may be For on what account can it possibly be a thing credible to me that S. Matthew's Gospel contains God's written Word any further than it is evident that the person who wrote it was one chosen by Christ to deliver the summe of his proceedings as an Apostle to the world And therefore I have no reason to think he would deceive men in what he spake or writ The only Question then is How I should know this is no counterfeit name but that S. Matthew writ it Let us consider what possible means there are to be assured of it I cannot imagine any but these two Either that God should immediately reveal it either to my self or to some Church to propound it to me or else that I am to believe those persons who first received those Copies from his hands by whose means they were dispersed abroad in the world from whence they are conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition down to us Of these two chuse whether you please if the first then particular immediate Revelations are necessary to particular persons to have such an Object of Faith sufficiently propounded to them and then the Church cannot authoritatively pronounce any Books of Scripture to be Canonical without immediate Revelation to her that this Book was written by such a person who was divinely assisted in the writing of it And this you have denied before to belong to the Church If you take up with the second the unquestionable Testimony of all Ages since the Apostles then judge you whether S. Matthew's Gospel be not sufficiently propounded to be believed and consequently Whether any one who should question or deny it be not guilty of the greatest peevishness and obstinacy imaginable From hence we may see with what superfluity of discretion the next words came from you Nay hence it follows that even our blessed Saviour who is Wisdom it self would have been esteemed by all the world not a wise Law-giver but a meer Ignoramus and Impostor For shame man forbear such insolent expressions for the future and repent of these For Must Christ's Wisdom be called in question and he liable to be accounted an
of the Catholick Church of all Ages comprehending the Apostles and Evangelists in it and in this sense he saith that place of S. Augustine is to be understood But what advantage this is to your cause I cannot imagine For what if the Catholick Church be taken in that comprehensive sense to include not only the Apostles but the Church successively from their times Doth it hence follow That it is not day though the Sun shines Or rather Doth it not follow That you are not so quick-sighted as you would seem to be And Whether his Lordship or you come nearer the meaning of Occham's words let any one judge For they who speak of the Church in that comprehensive sense do only suppose the Infallibility to have been in the Primitive Apostolical Church but the successive Church to be only the chanel of conveyance of that Testimony down to us and so they say no more than we do Thus Driedo expounds that place of S. Augustine who understands it of the Catholick Church which was from the beginning of the Christian Faith increasing according to the course of succession of Bishops to these times which Church comprehends in it the Colledge of Apostles Do you think that these men did believe a present Infallibility in the Church If so To what end are they so careful to carry it so high as the Apostles Whereas on your Principle we can have no Assurance concerning any thing that the Apostles did or said but only for the Infallibility of the present Church You must therefore understand the present Church exclusively of the Apostolical Church and therefore if S. Augustine be understood in their sense he is far enough from serving your purposes But say you It is evident that S. Augustine must speak of the Church in his time because he speaks of that Church which said to him Noli credere Manichaeo which was not true of the Apostolical Church But Why might not the Apostolical Church be a reason to S. Augustine not to believe Manichaeus because he found no footsteps of his Doctrine in the Records of that Church Again suppose he means the present Church Doth he mean the infallible Testimony of the present Church Might not the Testimony of the Church supposing it fallible be sufficient for what S. Augustine saith of it I doubt it not And you seem to have no great confidence in this Testimony your self when you add That though it be a point of Faith to believe that the Church is infallible in delivering Scripture to us yet it is not a point of Faith that her Infallibility is proved out of the cited place of S. Augustine But when you say it is sufficient that it be clear and manifest out of the Text it self what Text do you mean S. Augustines or the Scriptures If S. Augustines you would do well to shew by what engines you force Infallibility out of his words if the Scriptures What becomes of our good Motives of Credibility When his Lordship objects That according to your Principles the Tradition of the present Church must be as infallible as that of the Primitive you very learnedly distinguish That if he means the one must be as truly and really infallible quoad substantiam as the other you grant it But if he mean the one must be as highly and perfectly infallible as the other quoad modum you deny it Very good still It seems there are higher and lower degrees in Infallibility I pray tell us What that is which is more than infallible The present Church you say is infallible but not so highly and perfectly infallible therefore there must be degrees in Infallibility and since the lowest degree is infallible that which is highly infallible must be more than infallible Again What difference is there between the substance and the mode in Infallibility I had thought the substance of Infallibility had layn in the mode and I should rather think Infallibility it self to be a mode of Apprehension then talk of substances and modes in it But it may be you mean such kind of modes of Infallibility as absolute and hypothetical If you do so explain your self by them and that we may better understand your meaning shew us whether the Church be at all capable of absolute Infallibility if not What difference there is in degrees between the hypothetical Infallibility of the present and Primitive Church supposing both infallible in delivering their Testimony and no otherwise For you yet again add Of the Churches Testimony being infallible but not simply Divine but it is the infallible Testimony of a desperate cause to have but one bad shift and to use it so often Because you would be apt to say That upon his Lordships rejecting the Infallibility of Tradition he left no use at all of it He therefore tells you Notwithstanding that it is serviceable for very good ends that it induces Infidels to the reading and consideration of Scripture and that it instructs novices and doubters in the Faith which two ends you say fall short of the end of Tradition For say you it founds and establishes Believers even the greatest Doctors of the Church for which you cite again this same place of S. Augustine But did not his Lordship tell you that some of your own understood that very place either of Novices or Infidels For which besides the Testimony of some of your own party he adds this reason because the words immediately before are If thou find one qui Evangelio nondum credit which did not yet believe the Gospel What wouldst thou do to make him believe Ego vero non c. To which you very prudently say nothing Concerning Almayn's Opinion That we are first and more bound to believe the Church than the Scripture you would seem in terms to disavow it though very faintly it is not altogether true and hope to salve it by a distinction of priority of time and nature and you acknowledge That in priority of nature we are first bound to believe the Church and I suppose in priority of time too if we believe the Scripture for the Churches sake Yet you would not have it said That we are more bound to believe the Church than Scripture but it is not what you would have properly said but what follows from that antecedent which Jacobus Almayn puts It is certain saith he that we are bound to believe all things contained in the Sacred Canon upon that account alone because the Church believes them therefore we are first and more bound to believe the Church than the Scripture which is so evident a consequence that nothing but shame would make you deny it Touching Almayn's and Gerson's reading compelleret for commoveret his Lordship saith That Almayn falsifies the Text notoriously you say No but you had rather charitably think they both read it so in some Copies his Lordship produceth a very ancient M.S. for the common reading you none at all for
that but only the concurrent Testimonies of some Schoolmen who must be confessed to be excellent Criticks and well versed in ancient M.SS. unless where they met with a little Greek or some hard Latin words and among whom the mistake of one would pass current for want of examining Copies let the Reader therefore judge whether Judgement be more probable But I think it not worth while to say more about it In your vindication of the Authority of Canus you make use of a very silly piece of Sophistry for say you Though he make Infidels and Novices in the Faith to be convinced by the Authority of the Church yet you say It doth not follow that he makes the said Authority a fallible but a certain and sure way to make them believe it But 1. The Question is Whether Canus doth understand that place of S. Augustine of Infidels and Novices or no 2. Suppose he sayes It is a sure way Doth it therefore follow that it is an infallible way Is nothing certain but what is infallible I hope you are certain that the Church of Rome is the Cacholick Church but Are you infallible that she is so If you advance all certainty to Infallibility or bring down all Infallibility to Certainty every Christian is as infallible as your Church is For I make no question but that every good Christian is certain of the Grounds and Principles of his Religion The same thing you return upon again after to little purpose you multiply words about Canus and Stapleton's Testimonies For say you because S. Augustine speaks of a sure way therefore he must mean an infallible way as though what was not supernaturally infallible was presently unsure I pray tell me Are you sure that two and two make four Yet I hope you will not say You are supernaturally infallible that they do so I hope you are sure there is a Pope at Rome and a goodly Colledge of Cardinals there but Are you infallible in this It is not then certainly the same to deny a thing to be infallible and to make it unsure And you are either very weak or very wilful in saying so In what sense this so much controverted place of S. Augustine is to be understood will be afterwards discussed and whether it be intended wholly for Infidels or no only I shall take notice now how in the last words of this Chapter you would again inferr Infallibility from undoubted certainty For say you the Church in S. Augustine's time esteemed her self undoubtedly certain that the Gospel was the infallible Word of God for otherwise she might be deceived her self and deceive others in commanding them to believe that to be God's Word which was only the word of man But What is it you would inferr from all this For we believe the Church as undoubtedly certain as may be that the Scriptures are God's Word yet we are far enough from believing that her Testimony now is supernaturally infallible CHAP. VII The Protestant Way of resolving Faith Several Principles premised in order to it The distinct Questions set down and their several Resolution given The Truth of matters of fact the Divinity of the Doctrine and of the Books of Scripture distinctly resolved into their proper grounds Moral Certainty a sufficient Foundation for Faith and yet Christian Religion proved to be infallibly True How Apostolical Tradition made by his Lordship a Foundation of Faith Of the certainty we have of the Copies of Scripture and the Authority of them S. Augustine's Testimony concerning Church-Authority largely discussed and vindicated Of the private Spirit and the necessity of Grace His Lordship's Way of resolving Faith vindicated How far Scripture may be said to be known by its own Light The several Testimonies of Bellarmine Brierly and Hooker cleared HAving thus far followed you through all your intricacies and windings and shewed with what diligence and subtilty you would juggle men out of their Faith under a pretence of Infallibility it will be necessary for the vindicating our Doctrine and the clearing this important Controversie with all evidence and perspicuity to lay down those certain grounds which we build our Faith upon And although it be one of the greatest of your Modern Artifices to perswade the world that Protestants have no certain grounds of Faith at all yet I doubt not but to make it evident that the way taken by the most judicious and considerative Protestants is as satisfactory and reasonable as I have already made it appear that yours is unreasonable and ridiculous Which I shall the rather do because through the want of a clear and distinct apprehension of the true way of resolving Faith no Controversie in Religion hath been more obscure and involved than this hath been Therefore for our more distinct method of proceeding I shall first endeavour to prevent misunderstanding by premising several things which are necessary for a through opening the state of the Controversie and then come to the resolution of it The things then I would premise are these following 1. That we enquire not after the reason why we assent to what is divinely revealed but after the reason why we believe any thing to be a Divine Revelation Therefore when men speak of the last resolution of Faith into the Veracity of God revealing they speak that which is undoubtedly true but it reacheth not our present enquiry I freely grant that the ultimate reason why any thing is believed is upon the Testimony of him from whom it comes and the greater the knowledge and fidelity is of him whose Testimony I believe the stronger my Assent is supposing I have sufficient evidence that it is his Testimony But that is our present Question for it being taken for granted among all Christians that God's Testimony is absolutely infallible there can no dispute arise concerning the ground of resolving Faith supposing God's Revelation to be sufficiently known For no one questions but God's Veracity however discovered is a sufficient ground for Faith but all the Question is How we come to know wherein this Veracity of God doth discover it self or what those things are which are immediately revealed by him Therefore to tell us that the resolution of Faith is into Gods Infallible Testimony without shewing on what account this testimony is to be beleeved to be from God is to tell us that which no one doubts of and to escape that which is the main question For in case Isaac should have denyed submission to his Fathers will when he went to be sacrificed till he could be satisfied concerning the lawfulness of that action which his Father went about Do you think it had been satisfactory to him if Abraham had told him that God had power to relax his own Laws and therefore he need not question the lawfulness of the action might not Isaac have presently answered That he did not question that what God commanded was lawful but that he desired was some evidence that he had
actually present when Christ delivered his Doctrine and wrought his Miracles Which that we may better understand we may consider what the use of our senses had been if we had been then present and consequently what the use of tradition is now to us Now it is apparent that the use of the senses to those who saw the Miracles and heard the Doctrine of Christ was not to give any credibility to either of them but only to be the means of conveying to them those things which might induce them to believe the same doth tradition now to us it doth not in it self make the Doctrin more credible but supplies the use of our senses in a certain conveyance of those things to us which were the motives to believe then For the motives to Faith both to them and us are the same only the manner of conveyance is different but our case is much the same with those who lived in the same Age but by reason of distance of place could not be personally present at what Christ did or said now if those persons were obliged to believe and had sufficient reason for Faith who by reason of distance of place could not exercise their senses about Christs Doctrine and Miracles the same reason and obligation have we who cannot do it by reason of distance of time And if there be any advantage on either side it is on ours because though the tradition doth not in it self give any credibility to the Doctrine yet there are such circumstances accompanying this tradition which may much facilitate our belief above theirs because by such a continued tradition we have an evidence of the efficacy of this Doctrine which had so continual a power as to engage so many in all ages since its first appearance to be the propagators and defenders of it And therefore this hath very much the advantage of the report of any credible persons in that age who might report to any at distance the Miracles and Doctrine of Christ. And this is the way of resolution of Faith which the Scripture it self directs us to How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Where we plainly see the resolution of Faith as to the Divinity of the Doctrine was into the Miracles wrought for the confirmation of it which was the proper witness or testimony of the Holy Ghost but the means of conveyance was by the tradition of those who were eye and ear-witnesses of what Christ said or did As therefore it was not supposed necessary for them who saw the miracles of Christ either to have some inward Testimony of the Spirit or some external Infallible Testimony of the Church to assure them that these miracles were really done by Christ but God left them to the judgement of sense so proportionably neither of those two is now necessary for the resolution of our Faith but God instead of the judgement of sense leaves us to the evidence of Tradition Object But all this is you say no more then Moral certainty which being fallible we cannot from thence be assured that Christian Religion is Infallibly true Answ. This being the great bug-bear wherewith you would fright men out of their Religion I shall in this place shew that it serves only to scare fools and children with For 1. What greater certainty had they who lived in the time of Christ and his Apostles and did not see their Miracles Had they or could they have any more than this you call moral Certainty and Do you really think that all such could not be sufficiently assured that Christian Religion was infallibly true 2. Moral Certainty may be a sufficient Foundation for the most firm Assent and therefore if the matter to be believed be the infallible Truth of a Doctrine upon suitable evidence though we have now but moral Certainty of that evidence the Assent may be firm to such a Doctrine as infallible And therefore the grand mistake lyes here as though our Faith were resolved finally into this moral Certainty or as if the Faith of those who saw Christ's Miracles were resolved into their eyes and not into the Miracles for as their eyes were but the means of conveyance of that evidence which was infallible so is that Tradition to us by which we have our Certainty of those evidences of the infallible Truth of Christian Religion And we are further to consider that the nature of Certainty is not so much to be taken from the matters themselves as from the grounds inducing the Assent that is Whether the things be Mathematical Physical or Moral if there be no reason to question the grounds of belief the case is all one as to the nature of the Assent So that moral Certainty may be as great as Mathematical and Physical supposing as little reason to doubt in moral things as to their natures as in Mathematical and Physical as to theirs Therefore this great quarrel about moral Certainty is very unreasonable unless it be proved that there is no cause of firm Assent upon moral grounds now if the cause of the Assent may be as equal and proportionable to their nature in moral things as in Mathematical there may be as firm an Assent in the One as in the Other as I have already shewed For which this reason is plain and evident that Certainty implies the taking away all suspicion of doubt But there can be no taking away all suspicion of doubt in Mathematical things without Mathematical evidence but in moral things all suspicion of doubt is removed upon moral evidence and therefore the Certainty may be as great in the Assent to one as the other Thus we see how unjustly and how much to the dishonour of Religion you quarrel with moral evidence as an uncertain thing But I answer yet further 3. That the greatest assurance we can desire that any Religion is infallibly True is from moral Certainty and that upon these three grounds 1. Because the grounds of all Religion are capable of no more 2. Because the highest evidence of any Religion must depend upon it 3. Because this in it self may evidently demonstrate that Christian Religion is infallibly True 1. There can be no greater than this moral Certainty of the main Foundations of all Religion which are The Being of God and Immortality of souls without the supposition of which there can be no such thing as Infallibility in the world and therefore from thence I may easily prove that there can be no more than moral Certainty of the existence of a Deity For if the very notion of Infallibility doth suppose a God then you cannot infallibly prove that there is One in your sense of Infallibility for then you must beg
speaks of i. e. that act of the Apostles whereby they delivered the Doctrine of Christ upon their Testimony to the world If you mean this Tradition for my part I do not understand it as any thing really distinct from the Tradition of the Scripture it self For although I grant that the Apostles did deliver that Doctrine by Word as well as Writing yet if that Tradition by Word had been judged sufficient I much question whether we had ever had any written Records at all But because of the speedy decay of an oral Tradition if there had been no standing Records it pleased God in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness to stir up some fit persons to digest those things summarily into writing which otherwise would have been exposed to several corruptions in a short time For we see presently in the Church notwithstanding this how suddenly the Gnosticks Valentinians Manichees and others did pretend some secret Tradition of Christ or his Apostles distinct from their writings When therefore you can produce as certain evidence any Apostolical Tradition distinct from Scripture as we can do that the Books of Scripture were delivered by the Apostles to the Church you may then be hearkened to but not be before 2. We have other waies to judge of the Identity of the Copies of Scripture which we have with those delivered by the Primitive Church besides the Testimony of the present Church And the judgement of the present Church considered meerly as such can be no argument to secure any man concerning the integrity and incorruption of the Books of Scripture We do therefore justly appeal to the ancient Copies and M. SS which confirm the incorruption of ours But say you What infallible Certainty have we of them besides Church Tradition Very wisely said in several respects as though no Certainty less than infallible could serve mens turn as to ancient Copies of Scripture and as though your Church could give men Infallible certainty which Copy's were ancient and which were not But for our parts we should not be at all nearer any certainty much less Infallibility concerning the authenticalness of any ancient Copy's because your Church declared it self for them neither can we imagine it at all necessary in the examination of ancient Copy's to have any Infallible certainty at all of them For as well you may pretend it as to any other Authours when all that we look after in such Copy's is only that evidence which things of that nature are capable of But you make his Lordship give as wise an answer to this question of yours They may be examined and approved by the authentical Autographa's of the very Apostles Where is it that this answer is given by his Lordship If you may be allowed to make questions and answers too no doubt the one will be as wise as the other But I suppose you thought nothing could be said pertinent in this case but what you make his Lordship say and then by the unreasonableness of that answer because none of these Autographa's are supposed extant and because if they were so all men could not be Infallibly certain of them you think you have sufficient advantage against your adversary because thereby it would appear there can be no certainty of Scripture but from the authority of your Church To which because it may seem to carry on your great design of rendring Religion uncertain I shall return a particular answer 1. Supposing we could have no certainty concerning the Copy's of Scripture but from Tradition this doth not at all advantage your cause unless you could prove that no other Tradition but that of your Church can give us any certainty of it Give me leave then to make this supposition That God might not have given this supernatural assistance to your Church which you pretend makes it Infallible Whether men through the Vniversal consent of persons of the Christian Church in all Ages might not have been undoubtedly certain That the Scripture we have was the same delivered by the Apostles i. e. Whether a matter of fact in which the whole Christian world was so deeply engaged that not only their credit but their interest was highly concerned in it could not be attested by them in a credible manner Which is as much as to ask Whether the whole Christian world was not at once besotted and infatuated in â—he grossest manner so as to suffer the records of those things which concerned their eternal welfare to be imbezeled falsified or corrupted so as to mistake them for Apostolical writings which were nothing so If it be not then credible that the Christian world should be so monstrously imposed upon and so grosly deceived then certainly the Vniversal Tradition of the Society may yield unquestionable evidence to any inquisitive person as to the integrity and incorruption of the body of Scriptures And if it may yield such evidence why doth it not so when we see this was the very case of the Christian world in all Ages Some writings were delivered to the Church of the Age they lived in by the Apostles these writings were so delivered as that the Christians understood they were of things of more concernment to them than the whole world was these writings were then received embraced and publickly read these writings were preserved by them so sacred and inviolable that it was accounted a crime of the highest nature to deliver the Copy's of them into the hands of the Heathen persecutors these writings were still owned by them as Divine and the rule and standard of Faith these were appealed to in all disputes among them these were preserved from the attempts of Hereticks vindicated from the assaults of the most learned Infidels transcribed into the Books of the most diligent Christians transmitted from one Generation to another as the most sacred depositum of Heaven And yet is it possible to suppose that these writings should be extorted out of their hands by violence abused under their eyes by fraud or suffered to be lost by negligence Yet no other way can be imagined why any should suspect the Books of Scripture which we have are not the same with those delivered by the Apostles All which are such unreasonable suppositions that they could hardly enter into any head but yours or such whose cause you manage in these disputes the most profligate Atheists or most unreasonable Scepticks If then we entertain but mean and ordinary thoughts of the Christians of all Ages if we look upon them as silly men abused into a Religion by fraud and imposture yet we cannot doubt but that these persons were careful to preserve the records of that Religion because they were so diligent in the study of it so venturous for it such enemies to the corrupters of it so industrious in propagating the knowledge of it to their friends and Posterity Do you think our Nation did ever want an Infallible Testimony to preserve the Magna Charta supposing no authentick
is so great integrity and incorruption in those Copies we have that we cannot but therein take notice of a peculiar hand of Divine Providence in preserving these authentick records of our Religion so safe to our dayes But it is time now to return to you You would therefore perswade us That we have no ground of certainty as to the Copies of Scripture but comparing them with the Apostles Autographa but I hope our former discourse hath given you a sufficient account of our certainty without seeing the Apostles own hands But I pray what certainty then had the Jews after the Captivity of their Copies of the Law yet I cannot think you will deny them any ground of certainty in the time of Christ that they had the true Copies both of the Law and the Prophets and I hope you will not make the Sanhedrin which condemned our Saviour to death to have given them their only Infallible certainty concerning it If therefore the Jews might be certain without Infallibility why may not we for if the Oracles of God were committed to the Jews then they are to the Christians now You yet further urge That there can be no certainty concerning the Autographa's of the Apostles but by tradition And may not every universal tradition be carried up as clearly at least to the Apostles times as the Scriptures by most credible Authours who wrote in their respective succeeding ages I answer We grant there can be no certainty as to the Copies of Scripture but from tradition and if you can name any of those great things in Controversie between us which you will undertake to prove to be as universal a tradition as that of the Scriptures you and I shall not differ as to the belief of it But think not to fob us off with the tradition of the present Church instead of the Church of all ages with the tradition of your Church instead of the Catholick with the ambiguous testimonies of two or three of the Fathers instead of the universal consent of the Church since the Apostles times If I should once see you prove the Infallibility of your Church the Popes Supremacy Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images the necessity of Coelibate in the Clergy a punitive Purgatory the lawfulness of communicating in one kind the expediency of the Scriptures and Prayers being in an unknown tongue the sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation to name no moâ—e by as unquestionable and universal a tradition as that whereby we receive the Scriptures I shall extoll you for the only person that ever did any thing considerable on your side and I shall willingly yield my self up as a Trophey to your brave attempts Either then for ever forbear to mention any such things as Vniversal Tradition among you as to any things besides Scriptures which carry a necessity with them of being believed or practised or once for all undertake this task and manifest it as to the things in Controversie between us Your next Paragraph besides what hath been already discussed in this Chapter concerning Apostolical tradition of Scripture empties it self into the old mare mortuum of the formal object and Infallible application of Faith which I cannot think my self so much at leasure to follow you into so often as you fall into it When once you bring any thing that hath but the least resemblance of reason more than before I shall afresh consider it but not till then What next follows concerning resolving Faith into prime Apostolical Tradition infallibly without the Infallibility of the present Church hath been already prevented by telling you that his Lordship doth not say That the infallible Resolution of Faith is into that Apostolical Tradition but into the Doctrine which is conveyed in the Books of Scripture from the Apostles times down to us by an unquestionable Tradition Your stale Objection That then we should want Divine Certainty hath been over and over answered and so hath your next Paragraph That if the Church be not infallible we cannot be infallibly certain that Scripture is Gods Word and so the remainder concerning Canonical Books It is an easie matter to write great Books after that rate to swell up your discourses with needless repetitions but it is the misery that attends a bad cause and a bad stomach to have unconcocted things brought up so often till we nauseate them Your next offer is at the Vindication of the noted place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel c. which you say cannot rationally be understood of Novices Weaklings and Doubters in the Faith This being then the place at every turn objected by you and having before reserved the discussion of it to this place I shall here particularly and throughly consider the meaning of it In order to which three things must be enquired into 1. What the Controversie was which St. Austin was there discussing of 2. What that Church was which St. Austin was moved by the Authority of 3. In what way and manner that Churches Authority did perswade him 1. Nothing seems more necessary for understanding the meaning of this place than a true state of the Controversie which S. Austin was disputing of and yet nothing less spoke to on either side than this hath been We are therefore to consider that when Manes or Manichaeus began to appear in the world to broach that strange and absurd Doctrine of his in the Christian world which he had received from Terebinthus or Buddas as he from Scythianus who if we belieue Epiphanius went to Jerusalem in the Apostles times to enquire into the Doctrine of Christianity and dispute with the Christians about his Opinions but easily foreseeing what little entertainment so strange a complexion of absurdities would find in the Christian world as long as the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were received every where with that esteem and veneration Two waies he or his more cunning Disciples bethought themselves of whereby to lessen the authority of those writings and so make way for the Doctrine of Manichaeus One was to disparage the Credulity of Christians because the Catholick Church insisted so much on the necessity of Faith whereas they pretended they would desire men to believe nothing but what they gave them sufficient reason for But all this while since the Christians thought they had evident reason for believing the Scriptures and consequently none to believe the Doctrine which did oppose them therefore they found it necessary to go further and to charge those Copies of Scripture with falsifications and corruptions which were generally received among Christians But these are fully delivered by S. Austin in his Book de utilitate credendi as will appear to any one who looks into it but the latter is that which I aim at this he therefore taxeth them for That with a great deal of impudence or to speak mildly with much weakness they charged the Scriptures to be corrupted and yet
of Christians in opposition to others is the true Church for resolving this question that we look on it as a great argument of the Credibility as well as Vniversality of this Tradition that all these differing Societies consent in it And not only they but the greatest opposers of Christianity Jews or Philosophers could never see any reason to call in question such a Tradition His Lordship the better to represent the use of Tradition in the last resolution of Faith makes use of this illustration That as the knowledge of Grammer and Logick is necessary in order to the making a Demonstration yet the knowledge of the Conclusion is not resolved into Grammer or Logick but into the immediate principles out of which it is deduced So a mans first preparative to Faith is the Churches Tradition but his full and last assent is resolved into the internal arguments of Scripture This you quarrel with and tell us There is not the same Analogy between Logick and Church Tradition your meaning I suppose is because Logick doth Physically by inlarging the understanding fit men for demonstrations but church-Church-Tradition cannot enable men to understand the Scripture But cannot you easily discern that Analogy which his Lordship brought this illustration for which is that some things may be necessary preparatives for knowledge which that knowledge is not resolved into Is not this plain in Logick and is it not as plain between Tradition and Scripture For though Tradition doth not open our eyes to see this light yet it presents the object to us to be seen and that in an unquestionable manner But for all this say you a man must either receive it on the sole authority of church-Church-Tradition or be as much in the dark as ever Why so Is there any repugnancy in the thing that Scripture should be received first upon the account of Tradition and yet afterwards men resolve their Faith into the Scripture it self May not a man very probably believe that a Diamond is sent him from a Friend upon the testimony of the Messenger who brings it and yet be firmly perswaded of it by discerning the Sparklings of it But say you further The Scriptures themselves appear no more to be the Word of God then the Stars to be of a certain determinate number or the distinction of colours to a blind man If this approach not to the highest blasphemy against the Scripture I know not what doth He that shall compare this saying of yours with that in the precedent Chapter That if Christ had not left the Church Infallible he might be accounted an Impostor and Deceiver may easily guess how much of Religion you believe in your heart when on so small occasions you do so openly disparage both Christ and the Scriptures It is well yet your Churches Infallibility can stand on no better terms than these are which will be sufficient to keep any who have any true sense of the truth and excellency of Christ and the Scriptures from hearkening to it But are you in good earnest when you say that Scriptures themselves appear no more to be the Word of God than the distinction of colours to a blind man which is as much as nothing at all Is there nothing at all in the excellency of the Doctrine and Precepts contained in the Scriptures nothing in those clear discoveries of God and our selves nothing in all those transactions between God and men nothing in that Covenant of Redemption between God and man through Christ nothing in the clear accomplishment and fulfilling of Prophesies nothing in that admirable strain and style which is in the writings nothing in that harmonious consent which is discovered in writers of several ages interests places and conditions nothing in that admirable efficacy which the Doctrine of it hath upon the souls of men to perswade them to renounce sin the world and themselves for the sake of it is there nothing more I say in all these which makes the Scripture appear to be the Word of God than the distinction of colours to a blind man Could you assoon think to account the starrs as discern any thing of Divinity from these things in the Scriptures If your eyes were as blind as your understanding could you assoon distinguish white from black as the Scripture from the Alcoran if they were both presented to you to read and judge of them according to the evidence you found in them Is it possible a man that owns himself a Christian should utter such opprobrious language of the Scripture You had been before speaking what honour you give to the Scripture notwithstanding you pretend your Church Infallible and I had mentioned some of those passages which occurr in your writers in disparagement of them but I must needs say they all fall short of this the Nose of Wax the Inky Divinity the Lesbian rule are Courtlike expressions to this of yours for this puts no difference in the world between the Scripture and the Alcoran if your Church should propound the one as well as the other For you could not possibly say worse of the Alcoran then that of it self it appeared no more to be the Word of God than distinction of colours to a blind man I might here send you to be chastised for this insolent Atheistical expression to the Primitive Fathers who speak so much in admiration of the excellency of Scriptures who did vindicate them from all assaults of the Heathen Philosophers I might send you to those of your own party who if they have any love or tenderness for Christian Religion will not suffer such passages to pass without the most severe rebukes I might sufficiently prove the contrary from the arguments used against Atheists by Bellarmine and others but I shall content my self with that noble and Christian confession of your Gregory de Valentiâ from whom you might learn more piety and modesty towards the Sacred Scriptures There being many things in the Doctrine of Christianity it self which of themselves may conciliate belief and authority yet that seems the greatest to me as hath been observed by Clement of Alexandria Lactantius and others that I know not with what admirable force but most divine it affects the hearts of men and stirs them up to vertue It is written with great simplicity and without almost any artifice or ornament of speech which is an argument that its authority is not humane but Divine for no humane writing hath any power on the minds of men without a great deal of art and eloquence How many things are there in this ingenuous and pious confession of this learned Jesuite which might if you have any shame left make you sensible of the Blasphemy of your former expression For 1. He saith there are many things in the doctrine of Christianity which for themselves may conciliate our belief and manifest their authority If for themselves then certainly the Scriptures of themselves have a great deal more evidence
of the Sun doth on the organs of sight and therefore that common speech that Light doth discover it self as well as other things is in this sense improperly applied to the Understanding for whatever is discovered to the mind in a discursive manner as all Objects of Faith are must have some antecedent evidence to it self which must be the ground of the act of assent That therefore which is called the Divine Light of Scripture is I suppose that rational evidence which is contained in the Books of Scripture whereby any reasonable man may be perswaded that these Books are of Divine Authority Now that herein I say nothing beyond or besides his Lordships meaning and intention will appear by his own discourse on this subject For 1. His Lordship designedly disproves that Opinion that Scripture should be fully and sufficiently known as by Divine and Infallible Testimony lumine proprio by the resplendency of that Light which it hath in it self only and by the witness that it can so give to it self Because as there is no place in Scripture that tells us such Books containing such and such particulars are the Canon and Infallible Will of God so if there were any such place that could be no sufficient proof for a man may justly ask another Book to bear witness to that and so in infinitum Again this inbred Light of Scripture is a thing coincident with Scripture it self and so the Principles and the Conclusion in this kind of proof should be entirely the same which cannot be Besides if this inward Light were so clear how could there have been any variety among the ancient Believers touching the authority of S. James and S. Judes Epistles and the Apocalypse c. For certainly the Light which is in the Scripture was the same then which now it is On these reasons then we see his Lordship not only disclaims but disproves such knowing the Scripture meerly by the Light within Two things then I hence inferr which will be very necessary to clear his Lordships meaning 1. That he no where attributes such an inward Light to Scripture that by it self it can discover that these Books are from God 2. That where his Lordship mentions this Light most he supposeth Tradition antecedent to it as appears by his whole discourse From whence I gather this to have been the plainest account of his way of resolving Faith as I have already intimated viz. that the resolution of Faith may be considered two waies into the Books and into the Doctrine contained in them The resolution into the Books must of necessity suppose Tradition and rely upon it and this kind of resolution of Faith cannot be into any self-evidence or internal Light but supposing the Books owned on the account of Tradition if the Question be concerning the Divinity of the Doctrine then he asserts that the resolution of this is into the Divine Light of Scripture i. e. into that rational evidence which we find of the Divinity of it in these Books which are owned on the account of Tradition And that this is his Lordships meaning appears 2. By his own Testimony who was best able to explain himself for when he goes about to confirm his Opinion by the Testimonies of the Fathers he tells us This was the way which the ancient Church ever used namely Tradition or Ecclesiastical Authority first and then all other arguments but especially internal from the Scripture it self And for this first instanceth in S. Augustine who saith he gives four proofs all internal to the Scripture it self which are First The Miracles Secondly That there is nothing carnal in the Doctrine Thirdly Fulfilling of Prophecies Fourthly The efficacy of it for conversion of the world All these we see he instanceth in as internal arguments and therefore make up that which he calls Divine Light So that all that he means by this Light of Scripture is only that rational evidence of the Divinity of the Doctrine which may be discovered in it or deduced from it Having thus explained his Lordships meaning it will be no matter of difficulty to return an Answer to the particulars by you alledged 1. You say That when Scripture is said to be a Light by the Royal Prophet it is to be understood in this sense Because after we have once received it from the infallible Authority of the Church it teacheth what we are to do and believe But 1. Doth not the Scripture sufficiently teach what we are to do and believe supposing it not received on the infallible Authority of the Church doth that add any thing to the Light of Scripture Or do you suppose the necessity of infallibly believing it on the Churches Authority before one can discern what it teacheth us to do and believe 2. What ground have you in the least to imagine that David ever believed the Scripture on the infallible authority of the Church That he doth suppose it to be Gods Word when he saith It is a Light to his feet I deny not but that he should suppose it to be so because the Church did infallibly tell him it was so is a most ungrounded Assertion Had he not sufficient evidence that the Law was from God by those many unquestionable and stupendous Miracles which attended the delivery of it Was not the whole constitution and government of the Jewish Nation an impregnable argument that those things were true which were recorded in their Books Did ever the Jewish Sanhedrin High Priest or others arrogate to themselves any infallible Testimony in delivering the Books of Moses to the people The most you can suppose of a ground of certainty among them was from that Sacred Record of the Book of the Law which was kept in the Ark And how could they know that was Authentick but from the same Tradition which conveyed the Miracles of Moses to them So that nothing like any infallible Authority of a Church was looked on by them as necessary to believe the Law to have been from God 3. Supposing it from tradition unquestionable that the Law was from God those incomparable directions which were in it might be a great confirmation to David's Faith that it was his Word Which is that he intends in these words Thy Word is a light to my feet c. to shew that excellency and perspicuity which was in his Word that it gave him the best directions for ordering his conversation And this is all which his Lordship means that to those who by the advantage of Tradition have already venerable thoughts of Scripture the serious conversing with it doth highly advance them and establish their belief of it as that Faith is thereby clinched which was driven in by education And therefore when he saith That Light discovers its self as well as other things he presently adds not till there hath been a preparing instruction what Light it is Thus he saith the Tradition of the Church is the first moral motive
to belief But the belief it self that Scripture is the Word of God rests upon Scripture when a man finds it to answer and exceed that which the Church gave in Testimony For this his Lordship cites Origen who though much nearer the prime Tradition than we are yet being to prove that the Scriptures were inspired from God he saith De hoc assignabimus ex ipsis Scripturis Divinis quae nos competentèr moverint c. We will mention those things out of the sacred Scriptures which have perswaded us c. To this you answer Though Origen prove by the Scriptures themselves that they were inspired from God yet doth he never avow that this could be proved out of them unless they were received by the infallible Authority of the Church Which Answer is very unreasonable For 1. It might be justly expected that his Lordship had produced an express Testimony to his purpose out of Origen you should have brought some other as clear for his believing Scripture on the Churches Infallibility which you are so far from that you would put us to prove a Negative But if you will deal fairly and as you ought to do produce your Testimonies out of him and the rest of the Fathers concerning your Churches Infallibility Till then excuse us if we take their express words and leave you to gather Infallibility out of their latent meanings 2. What doth your Infallibility conduce to the believing Scriptures for themselves For you say The Scriptures cannot be proved by themselves to be Gods Word unless they were received by the infallible Authority of the Church it seems then if they be so received they may be proved by themselves to be Gods Word Are those proofs by themselves sufficient for Faith or no If not they are very slender proofs if they be What need your Churches Infallibility Unless you will suppose no man can discern those proofs without your Churches Testimony and then they are not proofs by themselves but from your Churches Infallibility which may serve for one accession more to the heap of your Contradictions His Lordship asserting the last resolution of Faith to be into simply Divine Authority cites that speech of Henr. à Gandavo That in the Primitive Church when the Apostles themselves spake they did believe principally for the sake of God and not the Apostles from whence he inferrs If where the Apostles themselves spake the last resolution of Faith was into God and not into themselves on their own account much more shall it now be into God and not the present Church and into the writings of the Apostles than into the words of their successors made up into Tradition All that you answer is That this argument must be solved by the Bishop as well as you because he hath granted the authority of the Apostles was Divine as well as you Was there ever a more senseless Answer Doth Gandavo deny the Apostles authority to have been Divine Nay Doth he not imply it when he saith Men did not believe for the Apostles sakes but for Gods who spake by them As S. Paul said You received our word not as the word of men but as it is indeed the Word of God How the Bishop should be concerned to answer this is beyond my skill to imagine If Origen speaks to such as believed the Scriptures to be the Word of God so doth the Bishop too viz. on the account of Tradition and Education If Origen endeavoured by those proofs to confirm and settle their Faith that is all the Bishop aims at that a Faith taken up on the Churches Tradition may be settled and confirmed by the internal arguments of Scripture But how you should from this discourse assert That the Authority of the Church must be infallible in delivering the Scripture is again beyond my reach neither can I possibly think what should bear the face of Premises to such a Conclusion Unless it be if Origen assert That the Scriptures may be believed for themselves if Gandavo saith That the resolution of Faith must be into God himself then the Churches Authority must be infallible but it appears already that the premises are true and what then remains but therefore c. which may indeed be listed among your rare argumentations for Infallibility 2. That Scripture cannot manifest it self to be an infallible Light the proof of which is the design of your following discourse Wherein you first quarrel with the Bishop for his arguing from the Scriptures being a Light for thence you say it will only follow that the Scripture manifests it self to be a Light which you grant but that it should manifest it self to be an infallible Light you deny for say you unless he could shew that there are no other Lights save the Word of God and such as are infallible he can never make good his consequence For in Seneca Plutarch Aristotle you read many Lights and those manifest themselves to be Lights but they do not therefore manifest themselves to be infallible Lights The substance of your argument lyes in this The Scripture discovers the Being of God so doth the Talmud and Alcoran as well as it the Scripture delivers abundance of moral instructions but these may be found in multitudes of other Books both of Christians and Jews and Heathens and as we do not thence inferr that these Books are infallible so neither can we that the Scriptures are This is the utmost of sense or reason which I can extract out of your discourse which reduced into Form will come to this If the Scriptures contain nothing in them but what may be found in other Books that are not infallible then the Scriptures cannot shew themselves to be infallible but the antecedent is true and therefore the consequent I could wish you would have taken a little more pains in proving that which must be your assumption viz. That Scripture contains nothing in it but what may be seen in Seneca Plutarch Aristotle the Talmud Alcoran and other Books of Jews and Heathens These are rare things to assert among Christians without offering at any more proof of them than you do which lyes in this Syllogism If Scripture contain some things which may be seen in these Books then it contains nothing but what may be seen in these Books but the Scripture contains some things which may be seen in other Books viz. the existence of God and moral instructions therefore it contains nothing but what is in them And Do you really think that you have now proved that there is nothing in Scripture that can shew it self to be infallible because some things are common to other writings Would you not take it very ill that any should say that you had no more brains than a Horse or a creature of a like nature because they have sense and motion as well as you Yet this is the very same argument whereby you would prove that the Scriptures cannot shew
on other grounds is gratis dictum unless you can prove from the Fathers that they did believe the Scriptures infallibly on other grounds Which when you shall think fit to attempt I make no question to answer but in the mean time to a crude assertion it is enough to oppose a bare denyal Your following absurdities concerning the private Spirit infallible assurance Apostolical tradition have been frequently examin'd already Only what you say that you read esteem nay very highly reverence the Scripture is but Protestatio contra factum as may appear by your former expressions and therefore can have no force at all with wise men who judge by things and not by bare words 3. You say That if there were such sufficient light in Scripture to shew it self you should see it as well as we seeing you read it as diligently and esteem it as highly as we do What! You esteem the Scripture as highly as we who say that the Scripture appears no more of it self to be Gods Word than distinction of colours to a blind man You who but in the page before had said there was no more light in Scripture to discover it self than in Seneca Plutarch Aristotle nay as to some things than the Talmud and Alcoran You who say that notwithstanding the Scriptures Christ would have been esteemed an Ignoramus and Impostor if your Church be not Infallible Are you the man who esteem as highly of the Scriptures as we do May we not therefore justly return you your own language and say that if you do not see this light in Scripture it is because your eyes are perverse your understanding unsanctified which instead of discovering such Divine light in Scripture as to make you love and adore it can have the confidence to utter such expressions which tend so highly to the disparagement of it But did not his Lordship give before a sufficient answer to this objection by saying 1. That the light is sufficient in it self but it doth not follow that it must be evident to every one that looks into it for the blindness or perversness of mens minds may keep them from the discovery of it 2. He saith This light is not so full a light as that of the first Principles as that the whole is greater than the part that the same thing cannot be and not be at the same time And yet such is your sincerity you would seem at first to perswade the Reader of the contrary in your next Paragraph but at last you grant that he denies it to be evidently known as one of the Principles of the first sort For you with your wonted subtilty distinguish Principles known of themselves into such as are either evidently and such as are probably known of themselves i. e. Principles known of themselves are either such as are known of themselves or such as are not for what is but probably known is not certainly known of it self but by that probable argument which causeth assent to it But when you deny that the Scripture is so much as one of the second sort of principles and say expresly That of it self it appears not so much as probably to be more the Word of God than some other Book that is not truly such were you not so used to Contradictions I would desire you to reconcile this expression with what you said a little before of your high Esteem and Reverence of the Scriptures 3. The Bishop saith That when he speaks of this light in Scripture he only means it of such a light as is of force to breed Faith that it is the Word of God not to make a perfect knowledge Now Faith of whatsoever it is this or other principle is an evidence as well as knowledge and the belief is firmer than any knowledge can be because it rests upon Divine authority which cannot deceive whereas knowledge or at least he that thinks he knows is not ever certain in deductions from Principles but the Evidence is not so clear Now God doth not require a full demonstrative knowledge in us that the Scripture is his Word and therefore in his Providence hath kindled in it no light for that but he requires our Faith of it and such a certain demonstration as may fit that Now what answer do you return to all this Why forsooth We must have certainty nay an Infallible certainty nay such an Infallible certainty as is built on the Infallible Authority of the Church yet such an Infallible Authority as can be proved only by motives of credibility which is a new kind of Climax in Rhetorick viz. a ladder standing with both ends upon ground at the same time All the answer I shall therefore now give it is that your Faith then is certain Infallibly certain and yet built on but probable motives and therefore on your own principles must be also uncertain very uncertain nay undoubtedly and Infallibly uncertain What again follows concerning Canonical Books and the private Spirit I must send them as Constables do vagrants to the place from whence they came and there they shall meet with a sufficient Answer The remainder of this Chapter consists of a tedious vindication of Bellarmine and Brierely which being of little consequence to the main business I shall return the shorter answer I shall not quarrel much with you about the interpretation of those words of Bellarmine in the sense you give them viz. if they be understood of absolute necessity not of all Christians and only in rare cases that it is not necessary to believe that there is Scripture on supposition that the Doctrine of Scripture could be sufficiently conveyed to the minds of any without it as in the case of the Barbarous Nations mentioned by Irenaeus But for you who make the tradition of the present Church Infallible and at the least the Infallible conveyer of the formal object of Faith I do not see how you can avoid making it as absolutely necessary to be believed as any other object of Faith unless your Church hath some other way of conveying objects of Faith than by propounding the Scripture infallibly to us If therefore men are bound to believe things absolutely necessary to salvation because contained in that Book which the Church delivers to be the Infallible Word of God I cannot possibly see but the belief of the Scripture on the Churches Infallible Testimony must be as necessary necessitate medii as any thing contained in it As for the Citation of Hooker by Brierely Whether it be falsified or no will best be seen by producing the scope and design of that worthy Authour in the Testimonies cited out of him Upon an impartial view of which in the several places referred to I cannot but say that if Brierely's design was to shew that Hooker made the authority of the Church that into which Faith is lastly resolved he doth evidently contradict Mr. Hookers design and is therefore guilty of unfaithful
representing his meaning For where he doth most fully and largely express himself he useth these words which for clearing his meaning must be fully produced Scripture teacheth all supernaturally revealed truth without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be attained The main principle whereon the belief of all things therein contained dependeth is that the Scriptures are the Oracles of God himself This in it self we cannot say is evident For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart as they do when they hear that every whole is more than any part of that whole because this in it self is evident The other we know that all do not acknowledge it when they hear it There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered to 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 That to learn it we have no other way then only Tradition As namely that so we believe because both we from our predecessours and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denyed And by experience we all know that the first Motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it even 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 in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our receiv'd opinion concerning it So that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason Can any thing be more plain if mens meaning may be gathered from their words especially when purposely they treat of a subject than that Hooker makes the Authority of the Church the primary inducement to Faith and that rational evidence which discovers it self in the Doctrine revealed to be that which it is finally resolved into For as his Lordship saith on this very place of Hooker The resolution of Faith ever settles upon the farthest reason it can not upon the first inducement By this place then where this worthy Authour most clearly and fully delivers his judgement we ought in reason to interpret all other occasional and incidental passages on the same subject So in that other place For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief yet the authority of man is if we mark it the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scriptures I will not dispute whether here he speaks concerning the knowledge of Scripture to be Scripture or concerning the natural sense and meaning of Scripture suppose I should grant you the latter it would make little for your purpose for when he adds The Scripture doth not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signifie those things You need not here bid us stay a while For his sense is plain and obvious viz. that men cannot come to the natural sense and importance of the words used in Scripture unless they rely on the authority of men for the signification of those words He speaks not here then at all concerning church-Church-Tradition properly taken but meerly of the authority of man which he contends must in many cases be relyed on particularly in that of the sense and meaning of the words which occurr in Scripture Therefore with his Lordships leave and yours too I do not think that in this place Hooker by the authority of man doth understand church-Church-Tradition but if I may so call it humane-Humane-Tradition viz. that which acquainteth us with the force and signification of words in use When therefore you prove that it is Tradition only which is all the ground he puts of believing Scripture to be the Word of God from those words of his That utterly to infringe the force and strength of mans testimony were to shake the very Fortress of Gods truth Now say you How can that Fortress the Scripture be shaken were not that authority esteemed by him the ground of that Fortress That may very easily be shewn viz. by calling in question the truth of humane testimony in general for he plainly speaks of such a kind of humane testimony as that is whereby we know there is such a City as Rome that such and such were Popes of Rome wherein the ground of our perswasion can be nothing else but humane testimony now take away the credit and validity of this testimony the very Fortress of truth must needs be shaken for we could never be certain that there were such persons as Moses the Prophets Christ and his Apostles in the world we could never be certain of the meaning of any thing written by them But how farr is this from the final resolution of Faith into church-Church-Tradition But the place you lay the greatest force on is that which you first cite out of him Finally we all believe that the Scriptures of God are sacred and that they have proceeded from God our selves we assure that we do right well in so believing We have for this a demonstration sound and Infallible But it is not the Word of God which doth or can possibly assure us that we do well to think it his Word From hence you inferr That either he must settle no Infallible ground at all or must say that the Tradition of the Church is that ground No Infallible ground in your sense I grant it but well enough in his own for all the difficulty lies in understanding what he means by Infallible which he takes not in your sense for a supernatural but only for a rational Infallibility not such a one as excludes possibility of deception but all reasonable doubting In which sense he saith of such things as are capable only of moral certainty That the Testimony of man will stand as a ground of Infallible assurance and presently instanceth in these That there is such a City of Rome that Pius 5. was Pope there c. So afterwards he saith That the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most Infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield by which it is plain that the utmost certainty which things are capable of is with him Infallible certainty and so a sound and Infallible ground of Faith is a certain ground which we all assert may be had without your Churches Infallible Testimony Whether therefore Brierely and you are not guilty if
not of falsifying Hookers words yet of perverting his meaning let the Impartial Reader judge CHAP. VIII The Churches Infallibility not proved from Scripture Some general considerations from the design of proving the Churches Infallibility from Scripture No Infallibility in the High-Priest and his Clergy under the Law if there had been no necessity there should be under the Gospel Of St. Basils Testimony concerning Traditions Scripture less lyable to corruption than Traditions The great uncertainty of judging Traditions when Apostolical when not The Churches perpetuity being promised in Scripture proves not its Infallibility His Lordship doth not falsifie C's words but T. C. doth his meaning Producing the Jesuits words no traducing their Order C's miserable Apology for them The particular texts produced for the Churches Infallibility examined No such Infallibility necessary in the Apostles Successours as in Themselves The similitude of Scripture and Tradition to an Ambassadour and his Credentials rightly stated THE main design of this Chapter being to prove the Infallibility of the Church from the Testimonies of Scripture before I come to a particular discussion of the matters contained in it I shall make some general Observations on the scope and design of it which may give more light to the particulars to be handled in it 1. That the Infallibility you challenge to the Church is such as must suppose a promise extant of it in Scripture Which is evident from the words of A. C. which you own to his Lordship That if he would consider the Tradition of the Church not only as it is the Tradition of a company of fallible men in which sense the Authority of it is humane and fallible but as the Tradition of a company of men assisted by Christ and his Holy Spirit in that sense he might easily find it more than an Introduction indeed as much as would amount to an Infallible Motive Whence I inferr that in order to the Churches Testimony being an Infallible Motive to Faith it must be believed that this company of men which make the Church are assisted by Christ and his Holy Spirit Now I demand Supposing there were no Scripture extant the belief of which you said before in defence of Bellarmine was not necessary to salvation by what means could you prove such an Infallible Assistance of the Holy Spirit in the Catholick Church in order to the perswading an Infidel to believe Could you to one that neither believes Christ nor the Holy Ghost prove evidently that your Church had an assistance of both these You tell him that he cannot believe that there is a Christ or a Holy Ghost unless he believes first your Church to be Infallible and yet he cannot believe your Church to be Infallible unless he believes there are such things as Christ and the Holy Ghost for that Infallibility by your own confession doth suppose the peculiar assistance of both these And can any one believe their assistance before he believes they are If you say as you do By the motives of credibility you will prove your Church Infallible But setting aside the absurdity of that which I have fully discovered already Is it possible for you to prove your Church Infallible unless antecedently to the belief of your Churches Infallibility You can prove to an Infidel the truth of these things 1. That the names of Christ and the Holy Ghost are no Chimerical Fancies and Ideas but that they do import something real otherwise an Infidel would speedily tell you these names imported nothing but some kind of Magical spells which could keep men from errour as long as they carried them about with them That as well might Mahomet or any other Impostor pretend an infallible assistance from some Tutelar Angels with hard Arabick names as you of Christ and the Holy Ghost unless you can make it appear to him that really there are such Beings as Christ and the Holy Ghost and when you have proved it to him and he be upon your proof inclinable to believe it you are bound to tell him by your Doctrine that for all these proofs he can only fancy there are such Beings but he cannot really believe them unless he first believes your Church infallible And when he tells you He cannot according to your own Doctrine believe that Infallibility unless he believes the other first Would he not cry out upon you as either lamentable Fools that did not understand what you said or egregious Impostors that play fast and loose with him bidding him believe first one thing and then another till at last he may justly tell you that in this manner he cannot be perswaded to believe any thing at all 2. Supposing he should get through this and believe that there were such Beings as Christ and the Holy Ghost he may justly ask you 1. Whether they be nothing else but such a kind of Intellectus Agens as the Arabick Philosophers imagined some kind of Being which did assist the understanding in conception You answer him No but they are real distinct personalities of the same nature and essence with God himself then he asks 2. Whence doth this appear for these being such grand difficulties you had need of some very clear evidence of them If you send him to Scripture he asks you To what end for the belief of that must suppose the Truth of the thing in Question that your Church is infallible in delivery of this Scripture for Divine Revelation But he further demands 3. Whence comes that Church which you call Infallible to have this Assistance of both these Do they assist all kind of men to make them infallible You answer No. But Do they assist though not all men separately yet all societies of men conjunctly You answer No. Do they assist all men only in Religious actions of what Religion soever they are of Still you answer No. Do they assist then all men of the Christian Religion in their societies No. Do they assist all those among the Christians who say they have this Assistance No. Do they thus assist all Churches to keep them from errour No. Whom is it then that they do thus infallibly assist You answer The Church But what Church do you mean The Catholick Church But which is this Catholick Church for I hear there are as great Controversies about that as any thing You must answer confidently That Church which is in the Roman Communion is the true Catholick Church Have then all in that Communion this Infallible Assistance No. Have all the Bishops in this Communion it No. Have all these Bishops this Assistance when they meet together Yes say you undoubtedly if the Pope be their Head and confirm their Acts. Then it should seem to me that this Infallible Assistance is in the Pope and he it is whom you call the Catholick Church But surely he is a very big man then is he not But say you These are Controversies which are not necessary for you to know it sufficeth
Is it not sufficiently known to all persons who deal in this Controversie what you mean by the Catholick Church in this Controversie that it shall not be lawful for his Lordship in a Parenthesis to shew where you place this Infallibility but he must be charged with declining the Question This only shews a desire to cavil at little things when you were unable to answer greater Besides in the way you take of proving the Churches Infallibility by the Motives of Credibility there is a necessity even in this Controversie of declaring what that Catholick Church is which must be known by these Motives and therefore you have no cause to look upon this as running away from the Question That A. C. after a long and silent attention did meerly through the heat of his zeal become earnest in this business to do his Adversary good I must believe it because you tell me so though I see no great Motive of Credibility for it And on that account did desire him to consider the Tradition of the Church as of a Company of men infallibly assisted For such assistance you say is necessary as well to have sufficient assurance of the true Canon of Holy Scripture as to come to the true meaning and interpretation thereof But this is as easily denied as said We wait therefore for your proofs That which only seems here intended for that end is That when the Relator had said The Prophets under the Old Testament and the Apostles under the New had such an Infallible Divine Assistance but neither the High Priest with his Clergy in the Old nor any Company of Prelates or Priests in the New since the Apostles ever had it To this you reply That the like assistance with the Prophets and Apostles the High Priest with his Clergy had in the Old Testament as we gather out of Deut. 17.8 c. Where in doubts the people were bound not only to have recourse to the High Priest and his Clergy but to submit and stand to their judgement Much more then ought we to think that there is such an obligation in the New Testament which could not stand without Infallibility Witness the infinite dissentions and divisions in Points of Faith amongst all the different Christians that deny it Two things the force of this argument lyes in 1. That there was Infallibility in the High Priest and his Clergy under the Law 2. That if there were so then there ought to be so now Both these must be considered 1. That there was Infallibility in the High Priest and his Clergy under the Law which you prove from Deut. 17.8 Because there the people were not only to have recourse to them but to submit and stand to their judgement This argument in form is this Where there is to be not only a recourse but an obligation to submission there must be Infallibility but there were both these among the Jews as to the High Priest and his Clergy ergo You may see how forcible this argument is in a like case Where there is to be not only a recourse in matters of difficulty but an obligation to submit and stand to their judgement there must be Infallibility but to the Parliament of England there ought to be not only a recourse in matters of difficulty but a submission to their judgement therefore the Parliament of England is as infallible as the High Priest and Clergy under the Law by the very argument by you produced The same will hold for all Courts of Justice But Can you by no means distinguish between an obligation to submission and an obligation in conscience to assent to what is determined as infallibly true Is every person in all judiciary Cases where submission is required bound to believe the Judges sentence infallible If so we need not go over the Alps for Infallibility we may have it much cheaper at home But I suppose you will reply The case is very different because in the Text by you produced 1. Not Civil Matters but Religious are spoken of 2. That not any Civil Magistrates but the High Priest and his Clergy are the Judges mentioned 3. That not every kind of Judgement but an Infallible Judgement is there set down But if every one of these be false you will see what little advantage comes to your cause by this Testimony which I shall in order demonstrate 1. That this place speaks not of Religious Causes as such but of Civil Causes i. e. not of matters of Doctrine to be decided as true or false but matters of Justice to be determined as to right and wrong Not but that some things concerning the Ecclesiastical Polity of the Nation might be there decided for it was impossible in a Nation whose Laws depended on their Religion to separate the one from the other But that the Judgement given there did not determine the truth and falshood of things so as to oblige mens consciences to believe them but did so peremptorily decide them that the persons concerned were bound to acquiesce in that determination For the proof of this one would think the very reading of the place were sufficient If there arise a matter too hard for thee in Judgement between blood and blood between plea and plea and between stroke and stroke being matters of controversies within thy gates then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall chuse c. Which words are so generally expressed on purpose to take in all manner of controversies which might rise among them whether civil criminal or ceremonial And herein God makes provision against any rupture which might be among them upon any emergent Controversie by establishing a Court of Appeals to which all such causes should be brought in which the lesser Courts could not agree For that seems to be the main scope of the words by the following expression of Controversies within thy gates by which it seems evident that the Controversies were such as could come to no resolution in those inferiour Courts which sate in the Gates of the Cities by which it appears that these could be no momentous Controversies of Religion which never came under the cognizance of those inferiour and subordinate Courts By these words then God doth erect a Supreme Court of Judicature among them to which they might appeal not only in case of injury but in case of difficulty and those lesser Courts as well as particular persons were to submit to the Decree of the great Sanhedrin sitting in the place which God should chuse which was Shilo first and Hierusalem after And thence Maimonides so often saith That the establishment and coagmentation of all the Israelites did depend upon this place for hereby God set up such a Tribunal to which the last Resort should be made and from whose determinations there should remain no further appeal And according to the Tradition of the Jews these appeals were to be gradual i. e.
end differences as Infallibility in a constant Judge for all they had dissentions and divisions among them as well as we But you are very angry with his Lordship for taxing this pretence of Infallibility with Insolency and a design to lord it over the Faith of Christendom And therefore tell him You go no further than Christ himself leads you by Promises made of this Infallibility That is the thing in question and must not be taken upon the trust of your Infallibility in interpreting the places by you alledged When you can prove the Pastors of your Church to be as Infallible as the Apostles were and to have the same Spirit which they had I shall as little suspect them of Lording it over others as the Apostles but if it appear quite otherwise as to the Pastors of your Church name if you can a greater Insolency than to usurp a power of prescribing to the Faith of the Christian world As to what follows concerning your Churches Testimony being again Infallible by the assistance of Christ and his Spirit and yet not Divinely Infallible it is so subtle and Scholastical a distinction that I now begin not to admire Your so often using it for I see plainly if that wedge how blunt soever doth not rive asunder the knot it is like to remain for any thing you have to say to it His Lordship having given one Instance of the Insolency of your pretence of Infallibility by the dangerous errours which your Church doth hold particularly in equalling the Tradition of the present Church to the written Word of God which saith he is a Doctrine unknown to the Primitive Church and which frets upon the very Foundation it self by justling with it But being well acquainted with the Arts of your party in making a great noise with the Fathers and particularly in this Controversie with a citation out of S. Basils Books de Spirit Sanct. ad Amphilochium and especially those words parem vim habent ad pictatem speaking of Traditions he therefore in his Margent so far takes notice of them as to return this threefold Answer to to them 1. That he speaks of Apostolical Tradition and not the Tradition of the present Church 2. That exceptions are taken at this Book as corrupted 3. That S. Basil makes Scripture the Touchstone of Tradition To this you return a Threefold Answer 1. That 't is true he speaks of Apostolical Traditions but of such as were come down to their present times 2. That the Exceptions against the Book are unreasonable 3. That S. Basil doth not make the Scripture so to be the touchstone of Tradition as that Scripture must needs therefore be of greater force and superiour dignity than that of Tradition Because therefore this is the chief place in Antiquity which is produced on your side in behalf of Traditions it will deserve a more careful examination in the particulars by you mentioned 1. You acknowledge that he speaks of Apostolical Traditions and such as the present Church judged Apostolical now you say that the present Church is infallible in judging Apostolical Traditions and what Traditions are so judged are necessary to be practised Now I pray consider what difficulties and self-contradictions you have brought your self into by acknowledging these Traditions to have been judged Apostolical by the present Church For either that Church at that time was not infallible in judging Traditions and so the present Church of every age is not Infallible or if that was infallible yours is not for your Church differs from the Church in St. Basils time about these very Traditions by him mentioned your Church not judging them Apostolical Which will appear by an inspection into those things which are here accounted Traditions by him Among which he not only mentions signing believers with the sign of the Cross praying toward the East the oyl and the abrenunciation used in Baptism but the consecration of the person to be Baptized the standing at prayers untill Pentecost and above all the trine immersion in Baptism all which he saith come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Out of a secret and unpublished Tradition which our Fathers preserved in a quiet and silent manner Are these three last then acknowledged by your Church now for Apostolical Traditions or no Nay doth not your Roman Catechism absolutely pronounce the trine immersion to be unnecessary for baptism How can that become unnecessary which was once infallibly judged to be an Apostolical Tradition Either the Church then was out in her judgement or your Church out in hers and choose whether of those you have the more mind to either of them will help you to contradict your self 2. There want not sufficient reasons of suspecting that Book to be corrupted You say Erasmus was the first who suspected it Not the first who suspected corruption in St. Basils writings For Marcus Ephesius in the Florentine Council charged some Latinizing Greeks with corrupting his books against Eunomius protesting that in Constantinople there were but four Copies to above one thousand which had the passages in them which were produced by the Latins But suppose Erasmus were the first was he not so in discovering the genuine and supposititious writings of several others of the Fathers We must therefore enquire into the reason which Erasmus had of this suspicion Who tells us in his Epistle to John Dantiscus the Poland Embassadour that by that time he had gone through half this work he discerned a palpable inequality in the style sometimes swelling to a Tragical height and then sinking into a vulgar flatness having much more of ostentation impertinent digressions repetitions than any of St. Basils own writings which had alwaies a great deal of vigour simplicity and candour with great evenness and equality c. And although this argument to all that know the worth of that excellent person especially in his judgement of the writings of the Fathers will seem by no means contemptible yet we have much greater reason for our suspicion than this meerly from the stile For if you believe St. Basil was a man who knew how to speak consistencies that he would not utter palpable and evident contradictions in his writings you will have no reason to applaud your self in this as a genuine piece of St. Basils at least for the latter part of it For whereas you make this the force of his words That unwritten Traditions have equal force to stir up piety with the written Word You could hardly have named so many words which bear a greater face of contradiction to a multitude of testimonies in his unquestionably genuine writings For is it not St. Basil who saith That it is a manifest falling from the Faith and an argument of arrogancy either to reject any point of those things that are written or to bring in any of those things that are not written Is it not St. Basil who bids a man Believe the things that are
themselves had not such a continual Infallible assistance much less the LXX Disciples who are here spoken of 2. The message they were sent upon did not at all require any Infallible assistance for it was only a preparative message they not being sent to deliver fully the Doctrine of Christ but to tell them The Kingdom of God is at hand or nigh unto you ver 9 11. i. e. that blessed state of things under the Messias is now ready to be revealed to you the whole design therefore of that commission of the LXX Disciples and the Apostles when they were first sent abroad was of the same nature with Baptist's viz. to prepare people for the reception and entertainment of that Doctrine which Christ should deliver to them Now what Infallible assistance can be supposed necessary in order to this 3. The words imply nothing of Infallible assistance in them For when Christ saith He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me the plain meaning is no more than this They which hearken to your message and believe the truth of what you say do therein manifest their readiness to hearken to me and consequently will receive my Doctrine when it is delivered to them but they who despise this message of yours the affront they offer you reflects most on me who sent you and they shall find to their sorrow that in rejecting me they reject God too who will punish them severely for it which that it is the meaning of the words will very easily appear to any one that considers the scope and design of the place Now is it not possible for any to declare their respect to Christ by receiving his Messengers without believing those Messengers to be Infalliblâ— If that be possible then what kind of Infallibility can you hence inferr 2. Suppose I should grant these LXX Infallible in what they delivered yet nothing can be hence drawn for the Churches continual Infallibility because of the different reason of one from the other and that will appear in these things 1. These were immediately sent abroad by Christ himself when there were no Infallible writings containing this Doctrine made by himself or his Apostles And was there not then much more reason for such an Infallibility then there can be now 2. These had sufficient evidences to attest that Infallibility by that power of Miracles which they had in curing diseases and casting out of Devils ver 9. 17. And therefore those they were sent to had sufficient inducement to believe such an Infallibility if they had pretended to it when therefore you can prove the like of your lawfully sent Doctors and Pastors either a-part or in a General Council you may then from hence argue some thing toward that Infallibility but not before In your following words you acknowledge a difference in applying this text to the Apostles and their Successors For it was true in every one of the Apostles apart but it is not so in every one of the succeeding Pastors and for this you give these Reasons 1. Your adversaries and you are agreed in it viz. That the Pastors apart are fallible 2. 'T is manifest by experience that many eminent Pastors have not only been erronious but heretical 3. There is universal Tradition for it 4. Plain Scripture for it that even from themselves there should arise some that should speak perverse things These reasons I acknowledge to be so true that if you had expressed the Pope himself in them you could not have proved his fallibility better then by Experience Consent and Scripture But yet you have two Reserves in a Corner which marr all the rest viz. that from these places you make General Councils infallible and according to your most received perswasion the Pope too Do you so indeed and from these places and both of them Infallible whether they agree or not But if our reasons be not stronger against any such Infallibility deducible from these places than yours are for it for I have not seen any I am content to blind my understanding so much if I can as to believe what you say That to give reasons against your exposition is impossible But as your reason in all other things is weak so in this it appears that either your ignorance or your confidence is intolerable The next place is Matth. 28.20 I am with you alwaies even unto the end of the world To which his Lordship saith Yes most certain it is present by his spirit for else in bodily presence he continued not with his Apostles but during his abode on earth And this promise of his spiritual presence was to their Successors else why to the end of the world The Apostles did not could not live so long But then to the Successors the Promise goes no further than I am with you alwaies which reaches to continual assistance but not to Divine and Infallible What say you now to this Why forsooth It is the same answer as before and therefore deserves no further refutation But doth it not deserve some further proof of your Infallibility from this place Or are you content to let it go because you cannot but see that a spiritual presence and not infallible is hereby promised either to the Apostles or their Successors although from other places it appears that the spiritual presence of Christ with his Apostles did extend to so high a degree as to make them infallible in what they delivered for the Doctrine of Christ but no place of Scripture doth assert so much of the Churches infallibility It is well then that you grant that St. Gregory did not believe any infallible assistance in the Pastors of the Church but you say he understood it of them apart to make which probable you must produce some other places where he saith otherwise of them in Council But how a gracious presence of Christ with his Church which you grant Rhabanus Maurus meant by this place should suppose a conjunctive infallibility of the Pastors as a necessary foundation and support of the Church diffusive I confess is beyond my understanding but at least you say it denies it not neither doth it deny that you or I are infallible but doth it therefore follow that we are so What places you produce or rather bid us go seek for out of the Fathers to prove that they in effect it seems then not evidently do attribute infallibility to the Church but by no means Divine infallibility for this is more than the third time that you have forbid the Banes between those two words Divine and Infallible will to any that reads them appear to be capable of proving no more than the Perpetuity of a Church in the world but if any of them can do any better service I doubt not but we shall again meet with them and therefore shall adjourn their consideration to a more convenient place To
mistake to suppose a Church cannot continue without a vital inherent Principle of Infallibility in her self which must be discovered by Infallible Directions from the Head of it whereas we grant the necessity of an Infallible Foundation of Faith but cannot discern either from Scripture Reason or Antiquity that there must be a living and standing Infallible Judge which must deliver and interpret those Infallible Records to us We grant then Infallibility in the Foundation of Faith we assert the highest Certainty of the Infallibility of that Foundation we declare that the owning of that Infallible Foundation is that which makes men Christians the body of whom we call a Church we further grant that Christ hath left in his Church sufficient means for the preservation of it in Truth and Unity but we deny that ever he promised such an Infallibility to be constantly resident in that Church as was in the Prophets and Apostles and that neither any intention of Christ or any reason in the thing can be manifested why such an Infallibility should be so necessary for the Churches preservation that without it the Wisdom of Christ must be questioned and the Church built on a sandy Foundation Your citation of Vincentius Lyrinensis proves nothing but the Churches constancy in adhering to that Doctrine of Faith which was delivered from the beginning but how that should prove a Constant Infallibility I cannot understand unless it is impossible that there should be any Truth where there is no inherent Infallibility Thus we see what very little success you have in the attempt of proving the Churches continual Infallibility from Scripture From hence you proceed to the consideration of the way How Scripture and Tradition do mutually confirm each other His Lordship grants That they do mutually but not equally confirm the authority either of other For Scripture doth infallibly confirm the authority of church-Church-Traditions truly so called but Tradition doth but morally and probably confirm the authority of the Scripture This you say is apparently false but endeavour not to make it evident that it is so Only you say A. C. refused already to grant it Et quid tum postea Must every thing be false which A. C. refuses to grant But let us see whether his Similitude makes it out For saith he 't is as a Kings Embassadours word of mouth and his Kings Letters bear mutual witness to each other Just so indeed saith his Lordship For his Kings Letters of Credence under hand and Seal confirm the Embassadours authority infallibly to all that know his Seal and hand But the Embassadours word of mouth confirms his Kings Letters but only probably For else Why are they callâ—d Letters of Credence if they give not him more credit than he gives them To which you make a large Reply 1. That the Kings hand and Seal cannot confirm infallibly to a Forein King who neither knows hand nor Seal the Embassadours authority and therefore this reacheth not the business How we should know infallibly that the Scripture is Gods Word 2. That the primary reason Why the Embassadour is admitted is his own credit to which correspond the motives of Credibility of the Church by which the Letters of Credence are admitted 3. That none can give authority to the Letters of Credence or be infallibly certain of them but such as infallibly know that hand and Seal 4. That none can infallibly know that hand and Seal but such as are certain of the Embassadours sincerity But Doth all this disprove what his Lordship saith That though there be a mutual Testimony yet it is not equal for although the Letters of Credence might be the sooner read and admitted of on the Embassadours Reputation and Sincerity yet still those Letters themselves upon the delivery of them may further and in a higher degree confirm the Prince he is sent to of his authority to act as Embassadour Supposing then that there be a sufficient Testimony that these Letters were sealed by the Secretary of State who did manifest his Sincerity in the highest manner in the sealing of them though a Forein Prince might not know the hand and Seal yet upon such a creditable Testimony he may be assured that they were sealed by the Prince himself But then withall if the Embassadour to assure the Prince offers his own life to attest the truth of his Credentials and the Prince by reading the Letters find something in them which could not be written by any other than that Prince he then hath the highest certainty he can desire This is the case between Tradition and Scripture General Tradition at first makes way for the first admission of Scripture as the general repute of an Embassadours coming doth for his access to the Prince the particular Tradition of the Church is like the Embassadours affirming to the Prince that he hath Letters of Credence with him but then when he enquires into the Certainty of those Letters those Motives of Credibility not which relate to the person of the Embassadour but which evidently prove the sealing of those Letters as the constant Testimony of such who were present at it the Secretaries and Embassadours venturing their lives upon it must confirm him in that and lastly his own reading the Credentials give him the highest Confirmation i. e. The testimony of those who saw the miracles of Christ and his Apostles and confirmed the Truth of their Testimony by their dying for it are the highest inducement to our believing that the Scriptures were sealed by God himself in the miracles wrought and written by his own hand his Spirit infallibly assisting the Apostle but still after all this when in these very Scriptures we read such things as we cannot reasonably suppose could come from any but God himself this doth in the highest degree settle and confirm our Faith Therefore as to the main scope for which this Similitude was used by his Lordship it holds still but your mistake lyes in supposing that the Embassadours reception depended wholly on his own single Testimony and that was enough to make any Prince infallibly certain that his Letters of Credence are true which cannot be unless he knows before-hand that Embassadour to be infallibly true which is impossible to be supposed at his first reception Yet this is plainly your case that the Scriptures are to be infallibly believed on the single Testimony of the present Church which is to make the Embassadour himself give authority to his Letters of Credence and set hand and seal to them Whereas the contrary is most evident to be true But then supposing these Credentials admitted the Prince transacts with the Embassadour according to that power which is conveyed to him therein And thus it is in the present case Not as though a Prince treated every Envoy with equal respect to an Embassadour no more ought any Pastors of the Church be received but according to that power and authority which their Credentials viz. the
of all his goods And when he speaks of the Doctrine it self of Christianity he saies It is suitable to whatever was rational among the Platonists or other Philosophers but far more agreeable to it self and containing much more excellent things than ever they could attain to the knowledge of In his second Apology for the Christians to the Emperour Antoninus Pius he insists much on the excellency of the Doâ—trine of Christianity from the Precepts of it chastity love of enemies liberality submission to authority worship of God c. Afterwards he proves the truth and certainty of all we believe concerning Christ from the exact accomplishment of the Prophecies made concerning him in the Old Testament which discourse he ends with this saying So many and so great things being seen are sufficient to perswade men to believe the truth of them who are lovers of truth and not seekers of applause and under the command of passions Thus we see in all his discourses where he had the most occasion administred to him to discover the most certain grounds of Christian Faith he resolves all into the rational evidence of the truth excellency and divinity of the Doctrine which was contained in the Scriptures For in his second Oration to the Greeks after he had spoken highly in commendation of the Scripture calling it The best expeller of all turbulent passions and the surest extinguisher of those preternatural heats in the souls of men which saith he makes men not Poets nor Philosophers nor Orators but it makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dying men immortal and mortals become gods and transferrs them from the earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to such places whose confines are far above Olympus therefore O ye Greeks come and be instructed be ye as I am for I was as you are And these were the things which prevailed with me the divine power and efficacy of the Doctrine What was it then I pray that Justin Martyr of a Philosopher becoming a Christian resolved his Faith into If we may believe himself it was into the evidence of the Doctrine of Christianity and not into the Infallibility of any Church The Testimony of this person I have the more largely insisted on both because he was so great a Philosopher as well as Christian and lived so near the Apostolical times Next him we produce Athenagoras as a Philosopher too as well as Christian who flourished under Antoninus and Commodus to whom he made his Apology in behalf of the Christians in which he first undertakes to manifest the reasonableness of the Doctrine which they owned the Foundation of it being the same with that which the best Philosophers acknowledged the existence and unity of the Deity But saith he if we had nothing but such reasons as he had produced our perswasion could only be humane but the words of the Prophets are they which establish our minds who being carried beyond themselves by the impulse of the Divine Spirit spake that which they were moved to when the Spirit used them as Instruments through which he spake Is not here a plain resolution of Faith into that Divine Authority by which the Prophets spake and that not as testified by any Infallible Church but as it was discernable by those persons he spake to for he appeals to the Emperours themselves concerning it which had been a fond and absurd thing for him to do if the knowledge of that Divine Inspiration did depend meerly on the testimony of Christians as such and were not to be discovered by some common Principles to them and others Much to the same purpose Tatianus speaks in that eloquent Oration of his against the Greeks who was Justin Martyrs Scholar and we shall see how agreeably he speaks to him in the account he gives how he became a Christian. After saith he he had abundantly discovered the vanity of the Theology and Superstitions of the Greeks he fell to the reading some strange Books much elder and more Divine than the Writings of the Greek Philosophers And to these saith he I yielded up my Faith for the great simplicity and plainness of the style and the freedom from affectation which was in the writers and that evidence and perspicuity which was in all they writ and because they foretold things to come made excellent promises and manifestly declared the Monarchy of the World What Protestant could speak higher of the Scripture and of those internal arguments which are the grounds of Faith than Tatianus in these words doth Yet we see these were the arguments which made him relinquish the Greek learning of which he was a Professor at Rome and betake himself to the profession of Christianity though he was sure to undergo not only contempt from the world but to be in continual hazard of his life by it That innate simplicity of the writings of the Scripture joyned with the perspicuity of it if at least those words be rightly translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by sermo nusquam obscurus and it doth not rather relate to the account of the worlds creation which I conjecture it may do but however the certainty of the predictions the excellency of the promises and the reasonableness of the Doctrine were the things which by the reading of the Books he was perswaded to believe them by But all this while we hear no news of any Churches Infallibility in order to Faith We come therefore to Irenaeus who was omnium doctrinarum curioâ—â—ssimus explorator as Tertullian speaks of him a great searcher into all kind of learning and therefore surely not to seek as to the true account of his Faith Whose judgement herein although we have had occasion to enquire into before yet we have testimonies enough beside to manifest his consent with them And although Irenaeus of all the ancient Fathers be looked on as the most favourable to Tradition and is most cited to that purpose in these disputes yet I doubt not but to make it appear that where he speaks most concerning Tradition he makes the resolution of Faith to be wholly and entirely into the Scripture and they who apprehend otherwise do either take the citations out of him upon trust or else only search him for the words of those citations and never take the pains to enquire into the scope and design of his discourse For clearing which we must consider what the subject was which he writ of what the plea's of the adverse party were what way Irenaeus takes to confute them and to establish the Faith of Christians as to the matter which was in Controversie The matter in dispute was this Valentinus and his Scholars not being contented with the simplicity of the Doctrine of the Gospel and in probability the better to suit their opinions to the Heathen Mythology had invented a strange Pedigree of Gods the better as they pretended to give an account of the production of things and the various dispensations
which had been in the world but knowing that the Christians did with the greatest resolution adhere to that Doctrine which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles they could not suppose that they should embrace these figments unless they could some way or other father them upon them Upon which they pretended that these very things which they delivered were really intended by Christ and the Apostles in their writings but because so few were capable of them they gave only some intimations of them there but delivered these great mysteries privately only to those who were perfect and that this was St. Pauls meaning when he said I speak wisdome among them that are perfect This Irenaeus gives us an account of in the beginning of all his discourse but is more fully expressed in the original Greek of Irenaeus preserved by Epiphanius in the heresie of the Valentinians On which account alone as Petavius saith Epiphanius hath well deserved of Posterity for preserving entire those original Fragments of Irenaeus his Greek therein being much more intelligible and smooth than the old harsh Latin version of him His words are All which things are not expresly declared in as much as all are not fit to understand them but are mysteriously couched by our Saviour in parables for such who are able to understand them Thus they said the 30. Aeônes were represented by the 30. years in which our Saviour did not appear publickly and by the parable of the works in the vineyard in which the 1 3 6 9 11 hours making up 30. did again denote their Aeônes and that St. Paul did most expresly signifie them when he used so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Duodecad of Aeôns by the 12 years at which our Saviour appeared disputing with the Doctors The raising of Jairus his daughter of 12 years represented Achamoth being brought to light whose passions were set forth by those words of our Saviour My God my God why hast thou forsaken me in which were three passions of Achamoth Sorrow Fear and Despair With many things of a like nature but hereby we sufficiently see what their pretence was viz. That there were deep mysteries but obscurely represented in Scripture but whose full knowledge was delivered down by an Oral Cabala from Christ and his Apostles Now we must consider what course Irenaeus takes to confute these pretensions of theirs First he gives an account what that Faith was which the Church dispersed up and down the world received from the Apostles and their Disciples viz. that thereby they believed in one God the Father Almighty who made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all in them and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God c. which was directly contrary to the Valentinian Heresies who supposed the Supream God and Demiurgus to be different and so Christus and Salvator and so in others This Faith which the Church hath received it unanimously keeps though dispersed through the whole world for although the languages be different yet the Tradition is the same among them whether they live in Germany France Spain the East Aegypt Libya or elsewhere And after in the first Book he hath shewed the many different opinions of the several broods of these Hereticks and in the second discovered the fondness and ridiculousness of them in his third Book he undertakes from Scripture to shew the falseness of them And begins with that excellent expression before cited For we have not known the disposition or oeconomy of our Salvation by others than by those by whom the Gospel came to us which they then first preached and after by the will of God delivered to us in writings to be the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith Which being laid down by him at his entrance as the grand principle on which he goes will lead us to an easie understanding of all that follows This therefore he not only asserts but proves for whereas some of the Adversaries pretended that the Apostles preached before they fully understood all they were to know he shews how false that was because after Christs Resurrection from the grave they were endued with the Spirit of God descending from on high upon them and were furnished with a perfect knowledge by which they went up and down preaching the Gospel which all and each of them had the knowledge of Thus Matthew in the Hebrew tongue set forth his Gospel when Peter and Paul at Rome preached the Gospel and founded a Church and after their departure Mark the Disciple and Interpreter of Peter writ those things which were preached Afterwards John published his Gospel at Ephesus in Asia And all these saith he delivered to us one God maker of Heaven and Earth and one Christ his Son To whom if one doth not assent he despiseth those who were our Lords companions and therefore despiseth our Lord Christ and likewise despiseth the Father and is condemned of himself resisting and opposing his own salvation which all Hereticks do Can any thing be more plain than that Irenaeus makes it his design to resolve Faith into the writings of Christ and his Apostles and saith That these writings were delivered as a Foundation of Faith that the reason why the Christians believed but one God and one Christ was because they read of no more in the Gospels published by them That he that despiseth them who were our Lords companions despise himself and God and condemn themselves He doth not say he that despiseth the lawfully sent Pastours of the Church meeting in General Councils nor them who have power to oblige the Church to believe as well as the Apostles had as you say but evidently makes the obligation to believe to depend upon that revelation of Gods will which was made by the Apostles and is by their writings conveyed down to us Would not the Valentinians have thought themselves presently run down by such wayes of confutation as yours are that they must believe the present Church infallible in whatever is delivered to be believed to the world But doth not Irenaeus himself make use of the Churches Tradition as the great argument to confute them by I grant he doth so and it is on that very account that he might confute them and not lay down the only sure Foundation of Christian Faith For he gives that reason of his doing so in the beginning of the very next Chapter For saith he when we dispute against them out of the Scripture they are turned presently to an accusing of the Scriptures as though they were not in all things right and wanted Authority and because of their ambiguity and for that truth cannot be found out by them without the help of Tradition I need not say that Irenaeus prophesied of you in this saying of his but it is as true of you as if he had Your pretences being the very same against the Scriptures being the rule of Faith with those of the Valentinians only
that you deny not the truth of what is therein contained for otherwise the want of Authority in themselves the ambiguity of them the impossibility of knowing the sense of them without Tradition are the very same arguments which with the greatest pomp and ostentation are produced by you against the Scriptures being the Rule whereby to judge of Controversies Which we have no more cause to wonder at than Irenaeus had in the Valentinians because from them we produce our greatest arguments against your fond opinions Now when the Valentinians pretended their great rule was on oral Tradition which was conveyed from the Apostles down to them to this Irenaeus opposeth the constant Tradition of the Apostolical Churches which in a continued succession was preserved from the Apostles times which was the same every where among all the Churches which every one who desired it might easily be satisfied about because they could number them who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches and their successors unto our own times who taught no such thing nor ever knew any such thing as they madly fancy to themselves We see then his appeal to Tradition was only in a matter of fact Whether ever any such thing as their opinion which was not contained in Scripture was delivered to them by the Apostles or no i. e. Whether the Apostles left any oral Traditions in the Churches which should be the rule to interpret Scriptures by or no And the whole design of Irenaeus is to prove the contrary by an appeal to all the Apostolical Churches and particularly by appealing to the Roman Church because of its due fame and celebrity in that Age wherein Irenaeus lived So that Irenaeus appealed to the then Roman Church even when he speaks highest in the honour of it for somewhat which is fundamentally contrary to the pretensions of the now Roman Church He then appealed to it for an evidence against such oral Traditions which were pretended to be left by the Apostles as a rule to understand Scripture by and were it not for this same pretence now what will become of the Authority of the present Roman Church After he hath thus manifested by recourse to the Apostolical Churches that there was no such Tradition left among them it was very reasonable to inferr that there was none such at all for they could not imagine if the Apostles had designed any such Tradition but they would have communicated it to those famous Churches which were planted by them and it was absurd to suppose that those Churches who could so easily derive their succession from the Apostles should in so short a time have lost the memory of so rich a treasure deposited with them as that was pretended to be from whence he sufficiently refutes that unreasonable imagination of the Valentinians Which having done he proceeds to settle those firm grounds on which the Christians believed in one God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ which he doth by removing the only Objection which the Adversaries had against them For when the Christians declared the main reason into which they resolved their Faith as to these principles was Because no other God or Christ were revealed in Scripture but them whom they believed the Valentinians answered this could not be a sufficient foundation for their Faith on this account because many things were delivered in Scripture not according to the truth of the things but the judgment and opinion of the persons they were spoken to This therefore being such a pretence as would destroy any firm resolution of Faith into Scripture and must necessarily place it in Tradition Irenaeus concerns himself much to demonstrate the contrary by an ostension as he calls it that Christ and the Apostles did all along speak according to truth and not according to the opinion of their auditours which is the entire subject of the fifth Chapter of his third Book Which he proves first of Christ because he was Truth it self and it would be very contrary to his nature to speak of things otherwise then they were when the very design of his coming was to direct men in the way of Truth The Apostles were persons who professed to declare truth to the world and as light cannot communicate with darkness so neither could truth be blended with so much falshood as that opinion supposeth in them And therefore neither our Lord nor his Apostles could be supposed to mean any other God or Christ then whom they declared For this saith he were rather to increase their ignorance and confirm them in it then to cure them of it and therefore that Law was true which pronounced a curse on every one who led a blind man out of his way And the Apostles being sent for the recovery of the lost sight of the blind cannot be supposed to speak to men according to their present opinion but according to the manifestation of truth For what Physitian intending to cure a Patient will do according to his Patients desire and not rather what will be best for him From whence he concludes Since the design of Christ and his Apostles was not to flatter but to cure mens souls it follows that they did not speak to them according to their former opinion but according to truth without all hypocrisie and dissimulation From whence it follows that if Christ and his Apostles did speak according to truth there is then need of no Oral Tradition for our understanding Scripture and consequently the resolution of our Faith as to God and Christ and proportionably as to other objects to be believed is not into any Tradition pretending to be derived from the Apostles but into the Scriptures themselves which by this discourse evidently appears to have been the judgement of Irenaeus The next which follows is Clemens of Alexandria who flourished A. D. 196. whom St. Hierome accounted the most learned of all the writers of the Church and therefore cannot be supposed ignorant in so necessary a part of the Christian Doctrine as the Resolution of Faith is And if his judgement may be taken the Scriptures are the only certain Foundation of Faith for in his Admonition to the Gentiles after he hath with a great deal of excellent learning derided the Heathen Superstitions when he comes to give an account of the Christians Faith he begins it with this pregnant Testimony to our purpose For saith he the Sacred Oracles affording us the most manifest grounds of Divine worship are the Foundation of Truth And so goes on in a high commendation of the Scripture as the most compendious directions for happiness the best Institutions for government of life the most free from all vain ornaments that they raise mens souls up out of wickedness yielding the most excellent remedies disswading from the greatest deceit and most clearly incouraging to a foreseen happiness with more of the same nature And when after he perswades men with so much Rhetorick and
man How much beyond the Valentinians and Basilidians would Clemens have accounted so great a madness who so plainly asserts the Scriptures to be proved by themselves and that not casually or in the heat of argument But lest we should not throughly apprehend his meaning repeats it again in the same page 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfectly demonstrating the Scriptures by themselves And are not all these Testimonies of such persons so near the Apostolical times sufficient to acquaint us what the grounds of the Resolution of Faith were in the Christian Church when all of them do so unanimously fix on the Scripture and not so much as mention the Infallible Testimonies of any Church much less the Roman Much more might be cited out of this excellent Authour to the same purpose particularly where he refutes the Valentinians who deserted the Scriptures and pleaded Tradition but the Testimonies already produced are so plain that it will be to no purpose to produce any more It were easie to continue an account of the same grounds of Faith through the succeeding Writers of the Christian Church who have designedly writ on that subject in vindication of Christian Religion which they unanimously prove to be Divine chiefly by these Arguments from the undoubted Miracles which were wrought by Christ and his Apostles from the exact fulfilling of Prophecies and the admirable propagation of the Christian Doctrine all which are particularly insisted on by Origen against Celsus by Tertullian in his Apologetick adversus Scapulam and elsewhere by Minucius Felix Arnobius and Lactantius not to mention Eusebius in his Books of preparation and Cyril's Answer to Julian and others But having elsewhere more fully and largely considered that subject I rather chuse to referr the Reader to what hath been there handled already than to tire his patience with either repeating the same or adding more Testimonies to the same purpose Only that which is most pertinent to our present purpose I shall here add Whether is it credible that those persons who fully understood the Doctrine of Christianity who were themselves rational and inquisitive men and writ for the satisfaction not only of subtle adversaries but of doubting and staggering Christians should so unanimously agree in insisting on the evidence of matter of fact for the truth of the thing delivered in Scripture and the fore-mentioned Arguments for the Divinity of the Doctrine therein delivered had it not been the judgement of the Church they lived in that the resolution of Faith was into those grounds on which they insisted And is it again credible that any of them should believe the Testimony of the Church to be necessary as infallible in order to a Divine Faith and that without it the Scriptures could not be believed as Divine and yet in all their disputes with the Gentiles concerning the Doctrine of Christianity and with several Hereticks as the Marcionists c. concerning the Books of Scripture upon no occasion should mention this grand Palladium of Faith viz. the Infallibility of the present Church And lastly Is it credible that when in our modern Controversies men do evidently maintain faction and interest more than the common Principles of Christianity that he must be blinder than one that can see no distinction of colours that doth not discern on what account this Infallibility is now pretended Is it I say credible that a Doctrine pretended so necessary for our believing Scriptures with Divine Faith should be so concealed when it ought for the honour and interest of Christianity to have been most divulged Which now only in these last and worst times is challenged by an usurping party in the Church as left by Christ himself when no other evidence can be given of it but what was common to all ages of the Church as belonging to such a party under the pretence of the Catholick Church which doth so apparently use it only to uphold her pretended Authority and so makes it serve to the worst ends and the most unworthy designs Having thus far considered what the judgement of those Fathers was concerning the resolution of Faith who lived nearest the Apostolical times I should now come to consider what you can produce out of Antiquity for your Churches Infallibility or more generally for any infallible Testimony supposed in the Catholick Church whatever that be in order to a Foundation for Divine Faith But you very prudently avoid the Testimonies of Antiquity in so necessary a subject as this is for those Testimonies mentioned in the foregoing Chapter in explication of Matth. 28.20 takeing them as you have in so loose and careless a manner produced them make nothing at all for the Churches Infallible Testimonie but only assert that which is not denied that there shall alwaies be a Christian Church in the world Our only remaining task then as to this is to examine in what way you seek to enervate the Testimonies produced by his Lordship out of Antiquity which you do in the latter part of Chap. 8. His Lordship had truly said That this method and manner of proving the Scripture to be the Word of God which he useth is the same which the ancient Church ever held namely Tradition or Ecclesiastical Authority first and then all other arguments but especially internal from the Scripture it self For which he cites first The Church in S. Augustine 's time He was no enemy to church-Church-Tradition saith his Lorship yet when he would prove that the Authour of the Scripture and so of the whole knowledge of Divinity as it is supernatural is God in Christ he takes this as the all-sufficient way and gives four proofs all internal to the Scripture 1. The Miracles 2. That there is nothing carnal in the Doctrine 3. That there hath been such performance of it 4. That by such a Doctrine of Humility the whole world almost hath been converted And whereas ad muniendam fidem for the defending of the Faith and keeping it entire there are two things requisite Scripture and church-Church-Tradition Vincent Lyrinens places authority of Scriptures first and then Tradition And since it is apparent that Tradition is first in order of time it must necessarily follow that Scripture is first in order of nature that is the chief upon which Faith rests and resolves it self To this after you have needlesly explained his Lordships opinion in this Controversie you begin to answer thus He cites first Vincentius Lyrinensis l. 1. c. 1. who makes our Faith to be confirmed both by Scripture and Tradition of the Catholick Church But Are not you like to be trusted in citing Fathers who doubly falsifie a Testimony of your adversaries when you may be so easily disproved For 1. You tell us he cites that first which he produceth last 2. You cite that as produced by him for the Foundation of Faith which he expresly cites for the preservation of the Doctrine of Faith so he tells you ad muniendam fidem
c. Can any thing be more plain and obvious to any one who looks into that discourse of Vincentius than that he makes it not his business to give an account of the general Foundations of Faith as to the Scriptures being Gods Word but of the particular Doctrines of Faith in opposition to the Heresies which arise in the Church So that all that he speaks concerning Scripture is not about the authority but the sense and interpretation of it If therefore I should grant you that he speaks of Christian and Divine Faith What is this to your purpose unless you could prove that he speaks of that Divine Faith whereby we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God But yet your argument is very good to prove that he speaks not of any humane fallible perswasion but true Christian Divine Faith for he opposes it to Heresie and calls it sound Faith and his Faith It seems then whatever Faith is sound for the matter of it is presently Christian Divine and Infallible and so whosoever believes any thing which is materially true in opposition to Heresies needs never fear as long as he doth so for according to you he hath Christian and Infallible Faith but what if the Devils Faith be as sound as any Catholicks ' Must it therefore be Divine Faith No it may be you will answer because he wants the formal object of Faith and doth not believe on the account of your Churches Infallibility I verily believe you for he knows the jugglings of it too much to believe it infallible But take Vincentius in what sense you please that is evident in him which his Lordship produced him for that for the preserving Faith entire he places authority of Scripture first and then Tradition unless you will serve his Testimony as you do his Lordships because it makes for your purpose say He mentions Tradition first and then Scripture but say you He sayes Tradition doth as truly confirm Divine Faith as Scripture though Scripture doth it in a higher manner If you did but consider either what kind of Tradition or what kind of Faith Vincentius insists on you could not possibly think his words any thing to your purpose For he speaks not of any Tradition infallibly attested to us without which you pretend there can be no Divine Faith but of such an Vniversal Tradition which depends wholly upon Antiquity Vniversality and Consent and never so much as mentions much less pretends to any thing of Infallibility So that if you grant such a kind of Tradition doth as truly confirm Faith as the Scripture then you must grant no necessity of an Infallible Testimony to assure us of that Tradition for Vincentius speaks of such a kind of Tradition as hath no connexion with Infallibility For if Vincentius had ever in the least thought of any such thing so great and zealous an opposer of Heresies would not have left out that which had been more to his purpose than all that he had said For wise men who have throughly considered of Vincentius his way though in general they cannot but approve of it so far as to think it highly improbable that there should be Antiquity Vniversality and Consent against the true and genuine sense of Scripture yet when they consider this way of Vincentius with all those cautions restrictions and limitations set down by him ◠1. c. 39. they are apt to think that he hath put men to a wild-goose-chase to finde out any thing according to his Rules and that S. Augustine spake a great deal more to the purpose when he spake concerning all the Writers of the Church That although they had never so much learning and sanctity he did not think it true because they thought so but because they perswaded him to believe it true either from the Authority of Scripture or some probable Reason If therefore S. Austin's Authority be not sunk so low as that of the Monk of Lerins we have very little reason to think that Tradition can as truly confirm Faith to us as the Scriptures supposing that to have been the meaning of Vincentius Which yet is not reasonable to imagine since Vincentius himself grants that in case of inveterate Heresie or Schism either the sole Authority of Scripture is to be used or at most the determinations of General Councils nay and in all cases doth suppose that the Canon of Scripture is perfect and is abundantly sufficient of it self for all things Can you yet therefore suppose that Vincentius did think that Tradition did as truly confirm our Faith as the Scripture Which is your assertion and the only thing whereby you pretend that the Bishop hath misconstrued Vincentius but whether be more guilty of it I leave to impartial judgement The next Testimony you consider is that of Henricus à Gandavo For his Lordship had said That the School had confessed this was the way ever For which he cites the Testimony of that Schoolman That daily with them that are without Christ enters by the woman i. e. the Church and they believe by that fame which she gives alluding to the story of the woman of Samaria But when they come to hear Christ himself they believe His words before the words of the woman For when they have once found Christ they do more believe his words in Scripture than they do the Church which testifies of him because then propter illam for the Scripture they believe the Church And if the Church should speak contrary to the Scripture they would not believe it Thus saith his Lordship the School taught then No that did it not say you But let us see how rarely you prove it For you say he speaks all this of a supernatural and Divine Faith to be given both to the Scriptures and the Church Gandavensis certainly is much obliged to you who venture to speak such great Absurdities for his sake for if he be understood in both places of Divine and Infallible Faith these rare consequences follow 1. That the first beginning of Faith is equal to the highest degree of it for when he speaks of the Church he speaks of Christs entring by that which can be meant of nothing else but the first step to Faith as is plain in the parallel case of the woman of Samaria but if this were Divine and Infallible it must be equal to the highest degree for that I suppose can be but Divine and Infallible unless you can find out degrees in Infallibility By this Rule you make him that is but over the threshold as much in the house as he that is sate down to the Table a plant at its first peeping out of the earth to be as tall as at its full growth and the Samaritans as firmly to believe in Christ at the first mention of him by the Woman as when they saw and heard him 2. By this you make an Infallible Faith to be built on a Fallible
those wise and holy men knew better the interest of Christianity than to offer to defend it by Principles in themselves false and much more liable to question than that was which they were to prove by them and therefore made choice of arguments in themselves strong and evident and built on Principles common to themselves and those whom they disputed against i. e. they urged them with the greatest strength of Reason and the clearest evidence of Divine Revelation and never questioned but that a Faith built on those grounds if effectual for a holy Life was a true and Divine Faith It seems then your cause cannot be maintained without the most sharp and virulent reflections on those Primitive Christians who among all those arguments whereby they so successfully prevailed over the Gentile world never did so much as vouchsafe to mention the least pretence to Infallibility for which they are now accused of using only the blunter weapons of humane and fallible motives and not those Primary and Divine Motives of Infallibility But this is not the first time we have seen what desperate shifts a bad cause puts men upon It may be yet your strength may lye in your last condition viz. That these arguments used by them were not internal For 1. You say That of Miracles is external the Scriptures themselves work none neither were ever any Miracles wrought to confirm that all the Books now in the Canon and no more are the Word of God I answer 1. I have already told you of a double resolution of Faith the one as to the Divinity of the Doctrine the other as to the Veracity of the Books which contain it when therefore Miracles are insisted on it is not in order to the latter of these which we have sufficient assurance of without them as I have already largely proved both as to the Truth and Integrity of the Canon of Scripture but Miracles we say are the arguments to prove the Divinity of the Doctrine by because they attest the Divine Revelation of the persons who deliver this Doctrine to the world 2. As to us who receive the report of those Miracles as conveyed to us by the Scripture those may be said to be internal arguments to the Scripture which are there recorded in order to our believing the Doctrine therein contained to be Divine The Motives of Faith being delivered to us now joyntly with the Doctrine although on different grounds we believe the Veracity of the Books of Scripture and the Infallibility of the Doctrine contained in it We believe that the Miracles were truly done because they are delivered to us by an unquestionable Tradition in such Authentick Writings as the Scriptures are but we believe the Doctrine contained in the Books to be Divine because attested by such Miracles and we believe the Books of Scripture to be divinely inspired because such persons cannot be supposed to falsifie to the world who wrought such great Miracles 2. You say The conversion of so many People and Nations by the Doctrine contained in Scripture is also external to the Scripture But still you suppose that these arguments are brought to prove these Books to be divinely inspired which is denied we say only That the admirable propagation of the Doctrine of the Gospel is a great argument that it was from God And therefore when afterwards you say That supposing all those arguments mentioned by the Bishop out of S. Augustine to be internal to the Scripture yet they cannot infallibly and divinely prove that Scripture is the Word of God If by Scripture you mean the Writings we pretend not to it if by Scripture you mean the Doctrine of it we assert it and think it no argument at all against that which you add That perswade they may but convince they cannot no doubt if they perswade they do much more than convince But I suppose your meaning is they do it not effectually if so that is not the fault of the arguments but of the person who by his obstinacy will not hearken to the clearest evidence of Reason All that this can prove is a necessity of Divine Grace to go along with external evidence which you dare not assert for fear of running into that private Spirit which you objected to his Lordship on the same account But it is very pretty which follows You say Supposing that all those arguments mentioned of Miracles nothing carnal in the Doctrine performance of it and conversion of the world by it were all of them internal to Scripture yet they could not prove infallibly the Scripture to be the Word of God and to prove this you tell us concerning the third and fourth How can it ever be proved that either the performance of this Doctrine or the conversion of Nations is internal to Scripture But Did you not suppose them before to be internal to Scripture and though they were so yet could not prove the Scriture c and to prove that you say they cannot be proved internal to Scripture Which is just as if I should say If you were Pope you would not be Infallible and all the evidence I should give for it should be only to prove that you were not Pope You conclude this Chapter with a Wonder I mean not any thing of Reason which would really be so But say you who can sufficiently wonder that his Lordship for these four Motives should so easily make the Scripture give Divine Testimony to it self upon which our Faith must rest and yet deny the same priviledge to the Church Seeing it cannot be denied but that every one of these Motives are much more immediately and clearly applied to the Church than to the Scripture What more immediately and clearly and so clearly that it cannot be denied Prove but any one of them as to that Church whose Infallibility is in question viz. the present Roman-Church and I will yield you the rest Produce but any one undoubted Miracle to confirm the Infallibility of your Church or the Pastors of it shew your Doctrine wherein it differs from ours not to be carnal manifest the performance of the Christian Doctrine only in the members of your Church prove that it is your Church as such which hath preached this Doctrine and converted whole Nations to the belief of it in any other way than the Spaniards did the poor Indians and we may begin to hearken with somewhat more patience to your arrogant and unreasonable pretence of Infallibility Can any one then who hath any grain of reason left him think that from these arguments while his Lordship disputes most eagerly against the present Churches Infallibility he argues mainly for it as you very wisely conclude that Chapter If this be arguing for your Churches Infallibility much good may such arguments do you And so I come to the last part of my task as to this Controversie which is to examine your next Chapter which puts us in hopes of seeing an End of
one of these three Answers 1. That it is a Principle to be supposed for though it be supposed as to the particular debate depending on Scripture yet it is fond and absurd to say It must be supposed when it is the thing in question 2. That it is known meerly by its own Light for the person I have to deal with supposing himself equally capable to judge of Reason and Evidence as my self it doth but betray the weakness of my cause or my inability to manage it to pretend that to be evident which it is much more evident that he doth not think so and it is only to tell him my Vnderstanding must rule his and that whatever appears to me to have Light in it self ought likewise so appear to him 3. It is as absurd as either of the other two to say That you will prove to a rational Enquirer the Scripture to be Gods Word by an unwritten Word of God For 1. His Enquiry is Whether there be any Word of God or no you prove there is because there is for that is all you prove by your unwritten Word He denies or at least questions Whether there be any and particularly instanceth in Scripture you think to end the Question by telling him He must believe it to be so because there is another Word of God which attests it which instead of ending the first Question begets a great many more For 2. He will be more to seek concerning this unwritten Word than before because he might use his Reason in judging concerning the written Word but cannot as to this unwritten it being only told him There is such a thing but he knows not what it is how far it extends who must deliver it what evidence this hath beyond the other that it comes from God that it must be used as an argument to prove it with If you send him to the Infallibility of the Church you must either presume him of a very weak Vnderstanding or else he would easily discern your perfect jugling in this the veins of which I have discovered throughout this discourse There remains nothing then but Reason a Principle common to us both by which I must prove that the Scriptures are from God which Reason partly makes use of the Churches Tradition not in any notion of Infallibility but meerly as built on Principles common to humane nature and partly uses those other arguments which prove by the greatest rational evidence that the Doctrine contained in Scripture was from God and if this were all the meaning of saying The Scriptures are a Principle supposed because of a different way of proving them from particular objects of Faith you can have no reason to deny it The next thing his Lordship insists on is That the Jews never had nor can have any other proof that the Old Testament is the Word of God than we have of the New In your Answer to which I grant that which you contend for That the Tradition of Scriptures among them was by their immediate Ancestors as well as others I grant That their Faith was not a Scientifical Knowledge but a firm perfect assurance only but understand not what you mean by saying That otherwise it would not be meritorious but am as far to seek as ever for any Infallibility in the Jewish Church which should in every age be the ground of believing the Books of the Old Testament to be divinely inspired And if you will prove a constant succession of Prophets from Moses till our Saviour's appearing which you seem willing to believe you would do something towards it but for your permanent Infallible Authority in the High Priest and his Clergy I have already shewed it to be a groundless if not a wilful mistake What remains concerning the nature of Infallibility which at last his Lordship makes to be no more than that which excludes all possibility of doubting and therefore grants that an Infallible Assurance may be had by Ecclesiastical and Humane proof and how far that is requisite to Faith concerning moral Certainty and what Assurance may be had by it concerning the Canon of Scripture Apostolical Tradition the unwritten Word S. Austin 's Testimony about the Church they are all points so fully discussed before that out of pity to the Reader I must referr him to their several places which when he hath throughly considered I will give him leave to summ up the several victories you have obtained in the management of it which will be much more honourable for you than for your self to do it as you do most triumphantly in the end of this Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith And although I have not been much surprized with your attempts yet I shall heartily conclude this great Debate with your last words in it The Consequence I leave to the serious consideration of the Judicious Reader I beseech God he may make benefit of it to his eternal felicity PART II. Of Schism CHAP. I. Of the Universal Church The Question of Schism explained The nature of it enquired into Several general Principles laid down for clearing the present Controversie Three grounds of the charge of Schism on Protestant Churches by our Authour The first of the Roman Churches being the Catholick Church entered upon How far the Roman Church may be said to be a true Church The distinction of a Church morally and metaphysically true justified The grounds of the Vnity of the Catholick Church as to Doctrine and Government Cardinal Perron's distinction of the formal causal and participative Catholick Church examined The true sense of the Catholick Church in Antiquity manifested from St. Cyprian and several cases happening in his time as the Schism of Novatianus at Rome the case of Felicissimus and Fortunatus Several other Instances out of Antiquity to the same purpose by all which it is manifest that the unity of the Catholick Church had no dependance on the Church of Rome The several testimonies to the contrary of St. Ambrose St. Hierome John Patriarch of Constantinople St. Augustine Optatus c. particularly examined and all found short of proving that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church The several Answers of his Lordship to the testimonies of St. Cyprian St. Hierom St. Greg. Nazianzene St. Cyril and Ruffinus about the infallibility of the Church of Rome justified From all which it appears that the making the Roman-Church to be the Catholick is a great Novelty and perfect Jesuitism SInce so great and considerable parts of the Christian Church have in these last ages been divided in communion from each other the great contest and enquiry hath been which party stands guilty of the cause of the present distance and separation For both sides retain still so much of their common Christianity as to acknowledge that no Religion doth so strictly oblige the owners of it to peace and unity as the Christian Religion doth and yet notwithstanding this we finde these
And the oppression of the Church of Rome he further adds is the great cause of all the errours in that part of the Church which is under the Roman Jurisdiction And for the Protestants they have made no separation from the General Church properly so called but their Separation is only from the Church of Rome and such other Churches as by adhering to her have hazarded themselves and do now miscall themselves the whole Catholick Church Nay even here the Protestants have not left the Church of Rome in her essence but in her errours not in the things which constitute a Church but only in such abuses and corruptions as work towards the dissolution of a Church Let now any indifferent Reader be judge Whether his Lordship or A. C. be the more guilty in begging the Question For all the Answer you can give is That his Lordship begs it in saying that the Roman Church is not the whole Catholick Church and that the Roman Catholick Church may be in an errour but the former we have proved already and I doubt not but the latter will be as evident as the other before our task be ended But as though it were not possible for you to be guilty of begging the Question after you have said that the Roman Church cannot erre you give this as the reason for it Because she is the unshaken Rock of Truth and that she hath the sole continual succession of lawfully-sent Pastors and Teachers who have taught the same unchanged Doctrine and shall infallibly continue so teaching it to the worlds end Now Who dares call this Begging the Question No it must not be called so in you it shall be only Taking it for granted Which we have seen hath been your practice all along especially when we charge your Church with errourâ— for then you cry out presently What your Church erre No you defie the language What the Spouse of Christ the Catholick Church erre that is impossible What the unshaken Rock of Truth to sink into errours the Infallible Church be deceived she that hath never taught any thing but Truth be charged with falshood she that not only never did erre but it is impossible nay utterly impossible nay so impossible that it cannot be imagined that ever she should erre This is the summ of all your arguments which no doubt sound high to all such who know not what confident begging the Question means or out of modesty are loath to charge you with it Much to the same purpose do you go on to prove that Protestants have separated not from the errours but the essence of your Church And if that be true which you say That those things which we call Errours are essential to your Church we are the more sorry for it for we are sure and when you please will prove it that they are not cannot be essential to a true Church and if they be to yours the case is so much the worse with you when your distempers are in your vitals and your errours essential to your Churches Constitution What other things you have here are the bare repetitions of what we have often had before in the Chapters you refer us to And here we may thank you for some ease you give us in the far greatest remaining part of this Chapter which consists of tedious repetitions of such things which have been largely discussed in the First part where they were purposely and designedly handled as that concerning Traditions chap. 6. that concerning necessaries to salvation chap. 2 3 4. that concerning the Scriptures being an Infallible Rule throughout the Controversie of Resolution of Faith and that which concerns the Infallibility of General Councils we shall have occasion at large to handle afterwards and if there be any thing material here which you omit there it shall be fully considered But I know no obligation lying upon me to answer things as often as you repeat them especially since your gift is so good that way It is sufficient that I know not of any material passage which hath not received an Answer in its proper place That which is most pertinent to our present purpose is that which concerns the necessity of a Living Judge besides the Scriptures for ending Controversies of Faith As to which his Lordship saith That supposing there were such a one and the Pope were he yet that is not sufficient against the malice of the Devil and impious men to keep the Church at all times from renting even in the Doctrine of Faith or to soder the Rents which are made For oportet esse Haereses 1 Cor. 11.19 Heresies there will be and Heresies there properly cannot be but in the Doctrine of Faith To this you answer That Heresies are not within but without the Church and the Rents which stand in need of sodering are not found among the true members of the Church who continue still united in the Faith and due obedience to their Head but in those who have deserted the true Church and either made or adhered to Schismatical and Heretical Congregations A most excellent Answer His Lordship sayes If Christ had appointed an Infallible Judge besides the Scripture certainly it should have been for preventing Heresies and sodering the Rents of the Church So it is say you for if there be any Heresies it is nothing to him they are out of the Church and if there be any Schisms they are among those who are divided from him That is he is an Infallible Judge only thus far in condemning all such for Hereticks and Schismaticks who do not own him And his only way of preventing Heresies and Schisms is the making this the only tryal of them that whatever questions his Authority is Heresie and whatever separation be made from him is Schism Just as Absalom pretended that there was no Judge appointed to hear and determine causes and that the Laws were not sufficient without one and therefore he would do it himself so doth the Pope by Christ he pretends that he hath not taken care sufficient for deciding Controversies in Faith therefore there is a necessity in order to the Churches Vnity he should take it upon himself But now if we suppose in the former case of Absalom that he had pretended he could infallibly end all the Controversies in Israel and keep all in peace and unity and yet abundance of Controversies to arise among them by what right and power he took that office upon him and many of them cry out upon it as an Vsurpation and a disparagement to the Laws and Government of his Father David and upon this some of the wiser Israelites should have asked him Whether this were the way to end all Controversies and keep the Nation in peace Would it not have been a satisfactory Answer for him to have said Yes no doubt it is the only way For only they that acknowledge my power are the Kings lawful subjects and all
looked on nothing else as a Foundation for their definitions but the written word of God then the Council of Trent did not proceed legally in offering to define matters of Faith on such grounds which were not acknowledged by the Primitive Church to be sufficient Foundation for such Definitions Cardinal Cusanus at large gives an account of the method of proceeding in the Ancient General Councils and therein tells us not only that the Word of God was placed in the middle among those who sate in Council but gives this as the only Rule of their proceeding quòd secundum testimonia Scripturarum decrevit Synodus that they decreed according to the testimonies of Scripture Now if another Council shall go according to a different Rule from what the Church hath esteemed the only true and adaequate Foundation for definition of Faith that Council breaks the inviolable Laws of Councils and therefore its proceedings cannot be legal As for Instance Supposing a Parliament not to have power to make new Laws but to declare only what is Law and what not for that is all you pretend to as to General Councils and that all other former Parliaments have all along professed this to be their Rule viz. that they search into the body of the Laws and if any thing be controverted Whether it be a Law or no they make a diligent search into it and examine all circumstances concerning it for their own satisfaction and according to the evidence they find of its being contained in this body of Laws they declare themselves but many things growing much in use among a prevailing party which have no colour of being in the written Laws but yet tend much to the Interest of that party and these being opposed by such who stand up for the ancient and known Laws the other are forced to make use of as good an Expedient as they can to preserve their interest and credit together To which end they pack together a company of such who are most concerned to maintain the things in Question and among these the great Innovator sits as President among them and suffers none to come there but such as are obliged by Oath to speak nothing against his Interest and these when met together seeing how unable they are to manage their business according to former Precedents the first thing they do is to declare That customs and usages have as much the force of Laws among them as any contained in the body of them and having established this their Rule according to it they decree all the matters in difference to be true and real Laws Would any man say That these men proceeded legally who first make the Foundation they are to go on contrary to all former Precedents and then define according to that Yet this in all particulars is exactly the case of the Council of Trent but the last part is that we are now about that they should contrary to the proceedings of all General Councils in matters of Faith first make their Rule and then bind all men to all those Decrees which are made according to it And therefore though the Council of Trent may be thought to act wisely in advancing Traditions to an equality with Scripture in the first place yet he must have a great deal of confidence and little judgement who say's that in decreeing matters of Faith from Tradition it acted legally i. e. according to the rules of the undoubted General Councils I cannot therefore say whether you have more of the one or less of the other when you tell us without offering to prove it That the Council did not proceed in a different manner from other lawful General Councils whil'st she grounded her definitions partly on Scripture partly on Tradition even in matters not deducible by any particular or Logical Inference from Scripture The absurdity of which Doctrine in it self I have at large discovered already in our discourse of the Resolution of Faith where it is shewed in what sense his Lordship say's That Apostolical Tradition is the Word of God But that this was a legal way of proceeding in the Council of Trent to define matters of Faith by such Traditions as have no ground in Scripture had need be better proved than by your bare Affirmation And if that be a Tradition too I am sure it is one that is neither contained in nor deducible from the Scripture 2. His Lordship justly excepts against the Council of Trent from the Popes sitting as President in it For saith he Is that Council legal where the Pope the chief person to be reformed shall sit President in it and be chief Judge in his own cause against all Law Divine Natural and Humane To this you return an Answer both to the matter of Right and the matter of Fact To the matter of Right you say That the Pope not being justly accusable of any crime but such as must involve not only the Council but the whole Church as well as himself the Protestants had no just cause to quarrel with the Popes presiding in it Nay that it is conformable to all Law Divine Natural and Humane that the Head should preside over the members and to give Novellists liberty to decline the Popes judgement or the judgement of any other their lawful Superiours upon pretence of their being parties is in effect to exempt absolutely such people from all legal censure and to grant there is no sufficient means effectually to govern the Church or condemn Heresie Schism and other offences against Religion But is it not unanswerable on the other side that this plea of yours makes it impossible that the errours and corruptions of a Church should be reformed in case the Governours of the Church do abett and maintain them If you say That it is not possible the Governours of the Church should do so we have nothing but your bare word for it and reason and experience manifest the contrary In case then there be a vehement presumption at least in a considerable party of the Church that the Church is much degenerated and needs reformation but those who call themselves the lawful Superiours of the Church utterly oppose it What is to be done in this case must the Church continue as it did meerly because the Superiours make themselves parties Nay suppose that which you would call Idolatry be in the Church and the Pope and a Council of his packing declare for it must there be no endeavours of a Reformation but by them who pronounce all Hereticks who oppose them But you say The Head must preside over the members an excellent Argument to defend all usurpations both in Church and State for doubtless they who are in power will call themselves the Heads of all others if that will secure them from any danger But this will exempt them from all legal censure so will your principles all Governours of the Church though guilty of Heresie Blasphemy Idolatry or what crime
any of the other but it was far from being so at the Council of Trent In the Nicene Council though Alexander was no further a party as to the Doctrine than the other Bishops no more was Leo at the Council of Chalcedon or Cyril at Ephesus though those are the three you instance in before yet he sate not as President of the Council but the Emperour had the chief Inspection for the right management of it and for the Conciliar actions Hosius was President Would the Pope have been contented with such a Council in his case wherein the Emperour should have sate in chief and some other person besides the Pope to have presided If not never go about to parallel these two Councils with each other Again in the Council of Nice all the Bishops came free without any praeengagement to maintain the party of Alexander but the Bishops at Trent were all sworn to defend the Papal Interest At Nice the Bishops themselves debated the matters in Controversie at Trent the Divines dispute the Bishops in their formalities give their Placet At Nice every one was freely heard none died for grief of checks being given them for their too free speaking as there did at Trent And these I hope shew there was much greater reason for the Protestants to except against the Council of Trent than for the Arrians against the Council of Nice And yet besides all these grounds of disparity those two remain good still which his Lordship instanceth in viz. That the Council of Nice proceeded wholly by the Scripture and that the sentence of it hath been universally received by the Church both before and after it neither of which can be said of the Council of Trent But to these two you offer something by way of Answer To the first That both these Councils had the Scripture for their Rule but not their only Rule for you say Theodoret expresly sayes that in condemning the Arrian Heresie the Council of Nice grounded it self upon Tradition But Theodoret sayes no such thing only out of an Epistle of Athanasius he sayes When the Arrians objected that they used words not contained in Scripture they gave them this Answer that so did they too but the words which they used were such as their Fathers had used before them and Do you call this the grounding the condemnation of them upon Tradition Yet to do you right I must suppose that either you took this upon trust without searching Theodoret or if you did you looked no further than Christophorsons Translation which in things concerning the Papal Controversies doth notoriously trip to say no worse of it as it were easie to manifest from several examples but we need no more than this present For whereas the words in Greek run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Sirmondus faithfully renders Nam cùm ipsi ex verbis non-scriptis impietatem suam adstruxerint nusquam enim scriptum reperias Ex non extantibus aut Erat quando non erat accusant quod per voces non-scriptas piè tamen excogitatas condemnati sint i. e. Though the Arrians made use of unwritten words themselves yet they accused their adversaries for condemning them by unwritten words meaning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Christophorson translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afferunt and there ends the sentence and then makes a new sentence Quapropter ex non-scriptis vocibus piè tamen excogitatis condemnati sunt By this wee see What necessity there is of searching your Citations in Antiquity which you deliver with so much confidence as though none had ever looked into the Fathers but your selves But I find you so often tripping in your quotations that where Bellarmine hath been used by the Latin Interpreter you very securely follow him in it as in another place mentioned in this Chapter where Christophorson renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mandato literarum which Bellarmine confidently cites as importing Damasus his power to summon the Council of Constantinople than which nothing can be further from the meaning of those words Thus you see how vain your attempt is of proving that the Council of Nice grounded her definition on Tradition as the Council of Trent did which is directly contrary to the advice of Constantine and the Proceedings of the Council as his Lordship truly told you To the second concerning the consent of the Church you answer That the like consent of the Church both is and was when Protestans first began But Will this reach to a Parity if it were granted for his Lordship speaks of the Consent of the Church in all ages from the Primitive and Apostolical times I pray prove your Mass Invocation of Saints Worship of Images Purgatory c. by such a Consent as this and then you may say There is no such disparity between them As to what you further add of the Council of Nice condemning the Quartodecimani for Hereticks I know not where you will find it I am sure Constantine is far from saying so in his Epistle perswading to union as to that matter Cannot the Council of Nice appoint time to celebrate Easter or determine that those who come from Hereticks shall not be rebaptized but they must presently condemn all who do otherwise for Hereticks But you must be pardoned you are proving a Parity between the Council of Nice and Trent and you know you could not do that sufficiently unless they condemned all dissenters in any punctilio for Hereticks His Lordship further proves That Trent could be no indifferent Council to the Church the Pope having made himself a strong party in it because there were more Italian Bishops there than of all Christendom besides yea more than double For where the number of Prelates is expressed that had suffrage and vote in that Council the Italians are set down to be a hundred eighty seven and all the rest make but eighty three so that there were more Italian Bishops by a hundred and four than of all the rest of Christendom sure saith he the Pope did not mean to be over-reached in this Council And whatsoever became of his Infallibility otherwise he might this way be sure to be Infallible in whatsoever he would have determined And this without all doubt is all the Infallibility he hath To this you answer That the Popes making a party is disproved by the very argument he brings to assert it viz. the multitude of Italian Prelates for Who knows not that the Italians are more divided in point of Interest and Dependence than in any other Nation of Christendom by reason of the many Soveraign Principalities and States into which Italy is divided But What is this to the purpose unless you could prove that the Italian Prelates were so divided in point of Interest and dependence Since therefore they have all their dependence on the Pope and not on those Principalities in which they live this evasion though very sleight is
Roman or Lutheran because all agree in this Truth not in any other Opinion You say This can hold no further than communicating in the belief of this Opinion let that be granted and Doth it not then follow that the Church of England's Opinion is the safest upon your own ground No say you for it is not such a common consent as doth exclude the manner of presence by trans or consubstantiation But How sensless an Answer is this for the Argument proceeds so far as all are agreed and the Church of England asserting that real presence which all acknowledge as simply necessary in order to the effects of it her Communion is more desirable on this account than of either of those Churches which offer to define the manner of Christ's presence since even the greatest men of your perswasion as Suarez and Bellarmin assert the belief of Transubstantiation not to be simply necessary to Salvation and that the manner of it is secret and ineffable It is therefore quite beside the purpose when you offer to prove that Suarez believed Transubstantiation for although he did so yet since he grants it not simply necessary to do it his Lordships Argument in behalf of the Church of England holds firm still unless you can prove that Suarez held the belief of that to be as necessary as the belief of the real and spiritual presence of Christ. But you after attempt at large to prove that the real participation of Christ in the Sacrament in your sense is quite different from that of Protestants If you mean a corporal participation indeed it is so but that is not it which is now enquired after but Whether you do not allow any real and spiritual presence of Christ besides the corporal manducation of that you call his body by Transubstantiation If you do not you would do well to shew what effects that hath upon the souls of men if you do then still the Church of England is of the safer side which holds that in which all are agreed Which is as much as we are here concerned to take notice of as to this subject the Controversie it self having been so lately handled 2. His Lordship instances in the Article of our Saviour Christ's descent into Hell both are agreed as to the Article of descent but the Church of Rome differs in the explication therefore it is safer holding with the Church of England which owns the Article without defining the manner But you say He proceeds on a false supposition for both are not agreed what is meant by Hell whether it be the place of the damned or no But this doth belong to the manner of Explication and not to the Article it self which both equally own and therefore the Church of England hath the advantage there 3. He instances in the Institution of the Sacrament in both kinds in which it is agreed by both Churches that Christ did institute it so and the Primitive Church received it so Therefore according to the former Rule 't is safest for a man to receive the Sacrament in both kinds This you say is as little to the purpose as the former because you do not agree that he did it with an intention or gave any command that it should be alwaies so received but still you are quite besides the business for that is not our Question but Whether it be more safe to adhere to that which Christ instituted and the Primitive Church practised as you confess your selves Or to your Church which prohibits the doing that which you confess Christ and the Primitive Church did And we see how great your Charity is when you deny a possibility of Salvation to those who assert that Christs Institution is unalterable or that all who communicate are bound to receive in both kinds For all other things concerning this subject I must referr the Reader to the precedent Chapter in which they are fully discussed 4. The dissenting Churches agree that in the Eucharist there is a sacrifice of duty and a sacrifice of praise and a sacrifice of commemoration Therefore it is safest to hold to the Church of England in this and leave the Church of Rome to her superstitions that I say no more Here you still pretend you differ in sense but all this is only to say you assert more than we do which we grant but assert upon your Principle that we are on the safer side And so in the intention of the Priest you agree with us as to the necessity of matter and form and therefore it is safer holding to that than believing the necessity of the Priest's intention which many deny And if the Rule doth hold as you assert That that which both are agreed in is safer than the contrary it will hold in matter of Opinion too that it is safer to believe no more is necessary to the Sacrament than both parties are agreed in The last Instance is That we say there are divers errours and some gross ones in the Roman Missal but you confess there is no positive errour in the Liturgy of the Church of England and therefore it is safest to worship God by that and not by the Roman Mass. This you answer as all the rest by running off from the business for you say It cannot be safer to use that because you Catholicks say That to use it in contempt of the Roman Missal is certainly damnable sin and destructive of Salvation But as it is not material what you say in this case so it is not at all to the purpose for if your Rule holds good it must be safer and if it be not you must confess the Principle is false That what both parties agree in is the safest to be chosen in Religion The same might be at large proved concerning the main things in difference between us that if this Principle be true we have very much the advantage of you as You and we are agreed that the Scripture is God's Word but we deny that Tradition is so therefore it is safer adhering to the Scripture and let Tradition shift for it self You and we are agreed that there are sufficient Motives of Credibility to believe the Scripture but we deny that there are any such Motives to believe the present Churches Infallibility therefore it is safer to believe the Scripture than the present Church So that this Principle if improved by these and other Instances will redound more to our advantage than yours considering that in the case we grant it as to you it is joyned with a Protestation of the extreme hazzard which those run who venture on your Communion on the account of it but there is no such danger upon the agreement with us in those Principles which are agreed upon between us 3. His Lordship answers truly that this Proposition That in point of Faith and Salvation 't is safest for a man to take that way which the
he ever speak so concerning the Trinity or the Incarnation of Christ which you parallel with Purgatory What would men have thought of him if he had said of either of those Articles It is not incredible they may be true and it may be enquired into whether they be or no Whatever then St. Austins private opinion was we see he delivers it modestly and doubtfully not obtruding it as an Article of Faith or Apostolical Tradition if any be And the very same he repeats in his Answer to the first Question of Dulcitius so that this was all that ever he asserted as to this Controversie What you offer to the contrary from other places of St. Austin shall be considered in its due place 4. Where any of the Fathers build any Doctrine upon the sense of doubtful places of Scripture we have no further reason to believe that Doctrine then we have to believe that it is the meaning of those places So that in this case the enquiry is taken off from the judgement of the Fathers and fixed upon the sense of the Scriptures which they and we both rely upon For since they pretend themselves to no greater evidence of the truth of the Doctrine then such places do afford it is the greatest reason that the argument to perswade us be not the testimony of the Father but the evidence of the place it self Unless it be evident some other way that there was an universal Tradition in the Church from the Apostles times concerning it and that the only design of the Father was to apply some particular place to it But then such a Tradition must be cleared from something else besides the sense of some ambiguous places of Scripture and that Tradition manifested to be Vniversal both as to time and place These things being premised I now come particularly to examine the evidence you bring That all the Fathers both Greek and Latin did constantly teach Purgatory from the Apostles times and consequently that it must be held for an Apostolical Tradition or nothing can be And as you follow Bellarmin in your way of proving it so must I follow you and he divides his proofs you say into two ranks First Such who affirm prayer for the dead 2. Such who in the successive ages of the Church did expresly affirm Purgatory First with those who affirm prayer for the dead Which you say doth necessarily infer Purgatory whatever the Bishop vainly insinuates to the contrary The Question then between us is Whether that prayer for the dead which was used in the ancient Church doth necessarily inferr that Purgatory was then acknowledged This you affirm for say you If there were no other place or condition of being for departed souls but either Heaven or Hell surely it were a vain thing to pray for the dead especially to pray for the remission of their sins or for their refreshment ease rest relaxation of their pains as Ancients most frequently do From whence you add that Purgatory is so undenyably proved that the Relator finding nothing himself sufficient to Answer was forced to put us off to the late Primate of Armagh 's Answer to the Jesuits Challenge Which you say You have perused and find only there that the Authour proves that which none of you deny viz. That the prayers and commemorations used for the dead had reference to more souls than those in Purgatory But you attempt to prove That the nature and kind of those prayers do imply that they were intended for other ends than meerly that the body might be glorified as well as the soul and to praise God for the final happy end of the deceased Whereas that Answerer of the Jesuite would you say by his allegations insinuate to the Reader a conceit that it was used only for those two reasons and no other Which you say you must needs avouch to be most loudly untrue and so manifestly contrary to the Doctrine and practise of the Fathers as nothing can be more A high charge against two most Reverend and learned Primates together against the one as not being able to Answer and therefore turning it off to the other against the other for publishing most loud untruths instead of giving a true account of the grounds of the Churches practise It seems you thought it not honour enough to overcome one unless you led the other in triumph also but you do neither of them but only in your own fancy and imagination And never had you less cause to give out such big words then here unless it were to amuse the spectatours that they might not see how you fall before them For it was not the least distrust of his sufficiency to Answer which made his Lordship to put it oft to the Primate of Armagh but because he was prevented in it by him Who as he truly saith had very learnedly and at large set down other reasons which the Ancients gave for prayer for the dead without any intention to free them from Purgatory Which are not only different from but inconsistent with the belief of Purgatory for the clearing of which and vindicating my Lord Primate from your calumnies rather then answers it will be necessary to give a brief account of his Discourse on that subject He tells us therefore at first That we are here prudently to distinguish the Original institution of the Church from the private opinions of particular Doctors which waded further herein then the general intendment of the Church did give them warrant Now he evidently proves that the memorials oblations and prayers made for the dead at the beginning had reference to such as rested from their labours and not unto any souls which were thought to be tormented in that Vtopian Purgatory whereof there was no news stirring in those dayes This he gathers first by the practise of the ancient Christians laid down by the Authour of the Commentaries on Job who saith The memorials of the Saints were observed as a memorial of rest to the souls departed and that they therein rejoyced for their refreshing St. Cyprian saith they offered Sacrifices for them whom he acknowledgeth to have received of the Lord Palms and Crowns and in the Authour of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy the party deceased is described by him to have departed this life replenished with Divine joy as now not fearing any change to worse being come unto the end of all his labours and publickly pronounced to be a happy man and admitted into the society of the Saints and yet the Bishop prayes that God would forgive him all his sins he had committed through humane infirmity and bring him into the light and band of the living into the bosoms of Abraham Isaac and Jacob into the place from whence pain and sorrow and sighing flyeth And Saint Chrysostom shews that the funeral Ordinances of the Church were appointed to admonish the living that the parties deceased were in a state of joy and not of grief and