The Certainty of Christianity Without Popery, Chapter 13
CHAP. XIII.
What the Papists ascertaining Medium is, and why we reject it.
§. 1. THough I will not intitle my Answer as Mr. Pool doth his book, The Nullity of the Romish faith, yet you might be ashamed if you have any modesty lest, to go about still with confident challenges with the same case, whilest neither that book of his, nor his Dialogue, nor the many in which I fully answer this very Question, have any reply. And indeed I have said so much to this point already, that without repeating the same things, I scarce know what is yet to say. Almost the whole book called The Safe Religion is of it; But most directly all the third part: Where pag. 186, 187. I briefly and plainly give you the grounds and resolution of the Protestants faith. And pag. 189. and forward I shew you the lamentable difference among the Papists about the Resolution of their faith. And pag. 195. and forward I give you abundance of unresistible Arguments to prove, 1. That It belongeth not to the Pope and Roman Church to be the Judge of Scriptures to all the world. 2. That they are not Infallible. 3. That our faith must not be resolved into their Infallible Judgement. And in my Reasons for the Christian Religion; and in my more Reasons for it, and in my Life of Faith, I have fully opened and desended the reasons, resolution and certainty of our faith. But seeing their Impudency and Designs are such, as that nothing of this must be considered (though they are referred to it,) but they must lay snares for souls, by canting over the same things, and calling out for that Answer which they will not take notice of when it is before them, some more they shall have, for the sake of those whom they would deceive: But in great brevity lest I tire the Reader by repetitions of things that have been so often said.
§. 2. Though the Papists are disagreed greatly among themselves in this matter, yet the most prevailing opinion is, that it is upon the Authoritative Determination of the Bishop of Rome and a General Council if he approve it, that all Christians in the world must have the Certainty what is indeed the word of God: And men must take all for Certain which is so determined of, and no more: even because this Authority hath so determined: And that this is to believe by the common certain faith of the Church, when otherwise men must have but an uncertain private faith of their own: And consequently that he that will convince an Infidel and convert he world, must first make them believe that the Pope and Council are Authorised or Enabled, to determine judicially (and not only to Teach by Evidence) what is Gods word and what not, before any thing can be Certainly taken for Gods word]
§. 3. The difference between the Papists opinion and ours, for brevity sake, shall be included in our Reasons against their pretended Certainty: which are these.
Reason I. We have another Certainty already by notorious Evidence of many things in your present Question. And must we quit all that Certainty, to take the same things only on trust from your Pope and his Council? We cannot do it; Because some evidence is Cogent, and the Intellect is necessitated by it: Must we not know that [Thou shalt Love God and thy neighbour] is Gods word, by its proper Evidence? We have the witness within us; we see on all true Christians that Holiness wrought by this Gospel, which God will not use a lie to effect (even to save men from sin, and recover the hearts of men to himself, and repair his Image on mans soul). Must I needs give the lie to this Evidence till the Pope speak. He that Loveth God may be sure by inward perception (yea Intuition if Ocham say true) that he Loveth him; and consequently is beloved of him; and this Gospel wrought it. Must I not know that [He that believeth shall be saved] is truly translated out of the Original, till the Pope determine it? Must I believe no Grammar, no Lexicon, no Antient Author, no Jew, no Teacher of Greek or Hebrew, no vulgar use, concerning the sense of words till the Pope determine it? Must I not know what the Baptismal Tradition of all Christians in the world doth tell me, that we must believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost till I know that the Pope determineth it? Must I not receive the Creed, Lords-Prayer, or Decalogue by all other Evidence till his word cometh in? Then I must throw away Certainty for uncertainty?
II. Your own party do not thus receive all in your Question. They teach and learn the Hebrew and Greek Grammars, and the Rules of Translating, and Criticize upon the Text, and search after the Copies to discern the best by intrinsick Characters, and by comparing them, as any man may see who readeth all your Gramarians, Criticks and Commentators: And yet must we know Translations and Copies only by the Popes determination?
III. Your own Popes ex Cathedra have given the Church various Translations: That Edition of the Vulgar Latine made by Sixtus 5. and that made about two years after Clemens 8. differ in so many hundred passages, and abundance of whole verses and sentences, that if a Bible be a Divine Revelation, one of them shamefully erred about Divine Revelations, or de fide. See Dr. Iames his Bellum Papale, and its Defence against Gretser. Where then is your Certainty?
IV. You are utterly uncertain and disagreed among your selves, who it is that hath this Ascertaining Determining Authority: You say it is your Church: But some say that the Infallibility and Power is in the Pope alone, in Cathedra. Some say it is a General Council though the Pope dissent: Some say that the Pope and Council must agree: and some say that the Church Essential of all Countries must receive the decrees before they are infallibly ascertaining. And who can be Certain of Gods word by an Authority which is it self so uncertain? See the proof in Safe Relig. p. 192, 193, 194.
V. Your own sentence condemneth your own Judges as uncertain: General Councils (as Constance and Basil) have concluded that Popes may err in matters of faith: yea accused and Condemned them as Hereticks, if not Infidels. And shall we not believe a General Council in matter of present fact, and yet must believe them what is Gods word? And that one Council hath Condemned another, and Popes have Condemned Councils, I have ibid. proved at large. And if Popes and General Councils distinct are deceitful, how shall we be sure that two false parties when they meet do make one true one?
VI. Popes and General Councils have often erred from the faith (as our Church of England truly asserteth): and therefore we are not sure that they never will do so more. Bellarmine himself noteth about fourty Popes charged with error or Heresie. Liberius subscribeth the sentence against Athanasius, and received the Arrians to Communion, and subscribed the Sirmian faith, Hane ego libenti animo suscepi in nullo contradicens: See his Epist. 7. in Binnius To. 1. p. 465. and his notes on it. See more in my safe Relig. p. 249, &c. And of Councils, p. 274, &c. The sixth General Council at Constantin. approved by Pope Adrian and by the seventh Council, hath many errors, as have many others there instanced in. What Certainty then can they give us?
VII. The Ancient Christians and Churches received not the Certainty of their faith upon the Authoritative determination of a Pope and Council. Therefore there is a Certainty to be had without it. The Churches that Paul or any Apostle Converted, believed not at first upon the Authority of a General Council, nor of a Pope. Till the Council of Nice, for above 300. years the world was without a General Council: And were they without faith? Frumentius and Aedesius that preached to the Indians and all other Christian Preachers that then converted souls took another course. They did not first convince men of the Authority of a Pope and General Council to tell them what was Gods word, before they brought them to believe it.
VIII. Scripture it self never mentioneth this Method or Evidence: And would it be silent of the only way of Certainty? It never saith to the world [You must know by the Judgement of Peter, or the Pope and a General Council what is the word of God] Did Christ forget it?
IX. The Ancient Defenders of the Christian Faith did all go another way: Iustin, Tertullian, Athenagoras, Tatianus, Minutius Faelix, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius in his two first Volumes de Praepar. & Demonstrat. Augustine, and all such writers, seek to prove our faith by other Evidence, and never say [the Pope and a General Council are the only ascertaining declarers of it.]
X. Our Proof of the Matters of fact is incomparably more certain than yours: For, 1. As to the Power of Judging, we maintain a concurrence of the peoples Discerning Iudgement, the Pastors Teaching or Directing Iudgement, and both Magistrates and Pastors Deciding and Governing Judgement, not to be the only Determiner of mens minds de fide, but to Rule the publick Doctrine and Communion of the Church according to Gods foreknown Laws. And as to the Truth of Copies, Miracles, and the actual delivery of the Gospel in the Scripture, and in the distinct Catechistical Articles aforesaid, we rest on Tradition which hath a Natural Infallibility, and not a pretended Authoritative Iudge. Your Tradition receiveth its credit from pretended Power to Iudge, which all the wise men in the world will deny till its proved. Our Tradition hath its credit from a Natural Impossibility that the History should be false. I have shewed you the proof of this in my More Reasons for the Christian Religion and else where: If you will not read them there, I know not whether you will read them here, and therefore will not write them again. We have all your Evidence which is Evidence indeed, and far more with it; And as Hierom saith, The world is more than the City. Your Tradition is that of a Popes judging Power only as some say; and of a Pope with his Council as others say; and of the Pope with his subjects as your few moderate Latitudinarians say▪ You are not above the third or fourth part of the Christian world: If you deny this, your Impudent lying may cheat a woman that never read the state of the world, but will shame you the more with learned men: And is not the Tradition, 1. Of all the Christian world for 300. years before there was any General Council, 2. And of all the Christian world since (even Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Copties, Abassines, and all others) more than the Tradition of a Pope and a few inslaved Priests? The Council of Trent had for a considerable time but 42. Bishops, even when it set up your Tradition as a supplement to Scripture. And is the Pope and these 42. of equal historical credit to all the Christian world?
3. Yea our History takes in Hereticks, yea and Infidels and Heathens too so far as they have left us any Testimony of these things. Even a Pliny, a Celsus, a Porphyry, a Iulian, and any other the bitterest Enemies: Because we prove it Impossible that so many men of different Countries, and no converse, and contrary minds and Interests, should confederate or agree to deceive the world, and be undetected in such a matter. And what is the Pope and 42. or two hundred Prelates (most of Italy) to such Historical Evidence as this?
O that you could lay by partiality and base selfish respects but for one day or hour? What if the Question among us were whether ever Paul was at Rome? Or Iustin wrote his Apologie? Or Origen was a professed Christian? Or Constantine the Great professed Christianity? Or whether the writings of Iustin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, &c. be true or spurious, &c. Whether do you think that the Intrinsick and Extrinsick Evidence, with the Consent of all the world that knew them, Christians, Hereticks, Heathens, &c. be not a more satisfying Evidence of truth, than if a Pope of Rome and his Council should say, so and so it was, (as Liberius condemned Athanasius,) without or against the rest of the world? If the Question were whether ever there was such a man as Gregory the first or seventh, or such a man as Luther, or as Charles the Great, or Car. 5. or King Iames in England, or such a thing as the French Massacre, &c. Is not the current uncontroled self-evidencing History of these matters, more certain than if the Pope and Council of Trent only had told us of them?
And we have all your valid testimony in, with ours. As you are part of the witnesses that received the Scriptures, and as you have among you the Teachers and Professors of them, or have any other Evidence of their truth, besides a pretended Power to Iudge for all the world, you are a part (and but a part) of our Historical witness. And cannot the Pope and his Council tell us as credibly whether Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, were ever in the world, and their writings be not spurious, as they are part of the world that hath credibly received it, as if they pretend a power to judge infallibly whether it be so or not?
XI. It is an injury to God for such arrogant fellows to pretend that he hath entailed on them a power to do that, which he enableth men by Natural means to do as well and better without them. As to pretend that God hath given them a judicial power, to tell us whether the Statutes of England are true or spurious? Whether ever there were such Kings or Parliaments as made them? &c. Doth not the Certain Historical Tradition of the world suffice for this without a supernatural power? If you say that soul-concernments must have more certainty than bodily? I answer, 1. The more impudent are you that would give us less. 2. The nature of the matter alloweth ordinarily no more. As sense told the seers of Christs and the Apostles Miracles that they saw them, and the hearers and readers of the Gospel that they heard and read it, so all the difference between their way of faith and ours is, that what they took by their own sense Immediately, that we take by a concatenation of successive senses and Tradition historical by currant proof. 3. You your selves find you have no more certainty that the Scripture is not a forged writing than you have that there was such a man as King Iames in England, whatever you pretend: 4. Do you not know that you must resolve even your pretended Authoritative Certainty into our Rational Historical Certainty. He that knoweth not that ever there was a Pope, (e. g. Greg. 7. Innoc. 9. Clem. 8.) or that ever there was a Council (e. g. of Trent, Lateran) knoweth not what they determined: But how know you what Popes and Councils you have had but by common Historical proof. Do you believe it only by the Iudicial decrees of later Popes and Councils?
XII. If the Pope and his Council know the Certainty of these things, it is either by Evidence and History as all men may do, or by Inspiration. If by Historical Evidence, it is extant before: If by Inspiration, let them prove themselves to be Prophets: Either by their Prophesyings, Miracles, or other Evidences, that may satisfie a man that is not mad.
XIII. Alphonsus a Castro tells us, some Popes understood not Grammar, and common history tells us what lads and ignorant fellows divers of them have been; And their own writers and General Councils tell us how horridly wicked many of them have been, (as Ioh. 22. Eugenius and other damned as hereticks by Councils: And Honorius the Monothelite, &c.) And is it probable that God should Inspire to Infallibility, Hereticks, Ignorant fellows, debauched wicked men, and work a Miracle to teach them to know that Infallibly which they knew not at all? When the Scripture and Nature tell us how he abhorreth such men.
XIV. They give us no Proof of their Infallibility; Either from any promise of God antecedently, or subsequent effect: How then shall we be sure of it.
XV. It is impossible for us to know who is a true Pope: And is every man that will call himself Pope, or only the true ones possest with this Infallibility? If all; then one of our Bishops may have it when he will: If not, no man can be sure of Gods word for want of being sure who is a true Pope? Read but what a plunge poor Mr. Iohnson, alias Terret, alias &c. is put to, as to the Questions about what makes a Pope in his answers to me, and you will see how they are bewildred: Their fourty years Schism, in which there were divers pretended Popes, and the uncertainty who is the true successor to this day, especially since Eugenius was deposed as a Heretick by a General Council, hath left this matter unrecoverably uncertain. If Electors give the Essence, People, Priests, Princes, Prelates, Cardinals, have been Electors by turns. If Consecration be necessary; it must be by an Inferiour, and no man knoweth by whom, and some have been Popes unconsecrated, and their power defended. If the Churches acceptance be necessary, no man knoweth in many schisms which had the greater party; but certainly neither had the Church.
XVI. It is impossible to know which have been true General Councils: and therefore impossible to know which of their Decrees are Gods word, and the Churches faith. They are utterly disagreed of this among themselves. Bellarmine and the Papalines tell us it is those only that are approved by the Pope, (and so if all the Christian world had no more wit than to send their Bishops from all parts of the Earth, to sit as long as the Council of Trent did (divers Popes Reigns) it is in the Popes power whether they shall be Approved Councils when all is done). But how know we which are Approved? Is it by the Decree of other Councils? No: None hath ventured to determine it. It is therefore by Common Historical Evidence: And so your faith must be thereinto resolved. And yet here History faileth you. How many Councils are Controverted? Bellarmine will partly tell you. What wanted Ephes. 2? What wanted that at Basil? And many more such, I have elsewhere debated.
XVII. There never was a real General Council in the world (unless you will call the twelve Apostles one.) This is the great cheat of the Papists: which I wonder all men that ever read History do not see as plainly, as any lie in History can be seen. Was it not the Romane Emperours that called the Councils? Had they any power out of their own dominions? Were not all the Patriarchs only in one Empire? Is their Jurisdiction mentioned in the Concil. Nicen. any further extended? Read in Binnius Surius or any others, the subscribed Names to all the Councils, and then peruse the Maps and Topography of the Roman Empire and the notitias Episcopatuum (even Aub. Myraeus famed for a feigner) and you will see that all the Councils were made up of the subjects of the Empire alone, or such as had been thereto accustomed while they were their subjects, (and but few of them,) unless some odd Bishop that no man knows what he was: Indeed when Scythia and Persia wanted help, they placed a Bishop in an Imperial City neer Scythia (as Tomis) and Persia, and gave him leave to help the Country as far as he could, and called him Bishop of Scythia or Persia.
But what is this to a true General Council representing all the Churches in the world (on the terms as Dr. Holden honestly requireth.) If you have a mind to laugh at the mans Ignorance in Cosmographie you may read Mr. Iohnson, alias Terrets Reply to me (which I am not so idle yet as to answer,) confuting me by instances out of Thracia and such like. But the thing is most Evident in History that as the Scots call the meeting of their Ministers a General Assembly, meaning of that Kingdom, and not of all the world, so the Councils in the Empire were called General, only as to that Empire and not to all the world: which I am ready to make good to any man that can understand History. The Pope was by one Prince made the chief Patriarch of that Imperial Church as the Kings of England preferred the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury; And four others they joined with him; of which one claimed Primacy when the Imperial seat was removed thither (never dreaming of a Divine right; else he could never have laid that claim;) And the Councils were only as our Convocations, and seldom extended to half the Empire. And little did those Emperours think, that thence their subject Popes and Councils would claim Supremacy at the Antipodes, and turn the orbis Romanus to orbis terrarum.
XVIII. There never will be, nor must be, nor can be a true General Council in the world. I have fully proved it in the second part of my Key for Catholicks; Read it there or Choose.
XIX. Your Popes and Councils have made no determination at all of many of the matters in your Question. Where have they determined, which are the true Copies of the Hebrew and Greek Text? Do you call us for our only Certainty to a Determination that was never made to this day! O for Modesty and Conscience! Where have they determined which are the right among all the various Readings? What need Lucas Brugensis, Alba, and so many others search after this with so much industry if the Pope have determined it? Where have they determined which are the only Currant or true Translations (however they have extolled the Vulgar Latine.) Is Montanus and other such Condemned? Where are all the Translators differences reconciled by the decision of Pope or Council? When did they determine the Controversies of Commentators of the sence of a thousand Texts of Scripture.
I must confess that a just indignation ariseth in me at the reading of such soul-cheating snares; where men have the Impudence to perswade us that we can be sure of none of our faith, unless we be sure of Copies, Translations, &c. by that Authority that never durst nor did determine of the many remaining Controversies thereabout? And where hath the Pope or Council given us a Grammar or Lexicon to know the true sense of words by, for the future? Fathers differ: Papists differ; the world is disagreed of the sense of words and many Texts: The Pope hath an infallible skill, and power with his Council to decide all, and will not: Was there ever a crueller wickeder wight in flesh? To see all this difference and darkness, and not vouchsafe to speak a few words, or write one Infallible Commentary to end them? Just as if the plague or feaver were common, and one Physicion would say, all men shall die that will not believe that I can cure all men; when in the mean time he will not cure those that do believe it?
What is it that your Pope and Councils are to determine? Is it the great Essentials of Religion? We thank them for notthing: Cannot we know that there is a God, and a Christ, till the Pope judge it? Have we not the Sacramental Covenant of Grace, the Creed, Lords Prayer and Decalogue surely delivered before any Pope or Council judged of them? Or is it of the hard controverted points: Do it then; and let us see that you can do it.
XX. Hath the Pope power to judge in utramque partem, either way, or only one way? May he judge that there is a God or no God, a Christ or no Christ, a Heaven or no Heaven, a Scripture or none, at his pleasure? If so, must we believe him if he be for the Negative? Take you that Certainty: we will have none of it: Or is he only to Iudge truly, and then only to be believed? (that there is a God, a Christ, a Scripture, &c.) So may and must every Teacher, yea and every Christian Judge. If you say that he cannot go besides the truth, General Councils and Pope Adrian himself said otherwise.
XXI. The Pope and his Council differ from the Council of Laodicea and the ancient Church, upon this very Question, What is the word of God, even of the Canon of the Scripture: For full proof whereof I refer you to Bishop Cousins Book, which bringeth full testimony from antiquity.
XXII. The use of Authority is not to disclose all Verities, but to Govern Societies in the management of them; If the King of Rome could prove himself King of all the world, that would but enable him to Govern the world: When one man that is at his footstool that is more Wise and Learned, may know better than he and his Council too, what's true or false.
XXIII. Your very foundation is a Contradiction in its self. What do you make a Pope to be but the Vicar of Christ? And (mark Reader) can any man be sure that he speaks true as Pope or Christs Vicar, that never knew that he was Pope or Christs Vicar? Or can any man believe that Christ hath an Infallible Vicar before he believe in Christ himself, and that he is Infallible? It's a contradiction to believe the Pope as his Vicar or Pope, before we believe Christ. If you believe that the Pope hath Power or Infallibility, you must believe that Christ gave it him. And if you believe that he gave it him, it must be by some Revelation that he gave it, and that you must believe it. And can you believe that Revelation that made him Pope or Infallible, before you believe any Revelation?
XXIV. The same contradiction there is in believing a Council or the Church, before you believe Divine Revelation: For you cannot know till you believe Divine Revelation, that Council or Church have any such being or power.
XXV. Either the Pope and Council themselves know the true Copies, Readings and Translations from the Authority of former Councils, or by their own: or by the Evidence of the thing: and Common History: or by Inspiration or Supernatural Revelation: If all the rabble of wicked Popes and Prelates pretend to Rule the Church and our faith by Inspiration, they are crackt-braind fanaticks: Sure they were no Prophets before they were Popes or Councillers. But if it be by their own Authority, who will take a self-made faith, of men that Believe only because they Believe? And must have all others believe only because they believed before them? Then it is themselves and not Christ that they believe. If it be, former Popes and Councils that they believe, tell us whom and why the first believed? Mark, that you cannot arise to St. Peter: For the various Copies and Translations which we are in question of, were all made since St. Peters daies.
XXVI. When in a Council the major part carry it by vote (perhaps by one or a few) How shall we be sure that all the minor part were deceived?
XXVII. How shall all those Abassines, Armenians, Indians in New-England or others that know not that ever there was a Pope or General Council, in the world, become Christians? Or are you sure they are none?
XXVIII. We see by experience in the foresaid Nations, and feel in our selves, that men may have a certain faith without receiving it from the Pope. Can you make me know that I do not believe, when I know that I do? And can you prove that only the third part of Christians in the world are true Christians, and have Certain faith, because all the rest receive it not from the Pope? and why may not the major part of the Church be sure as well as he?
XXIX. Hath the Church a twofold foundation for faith? If the Pope and Council believe Gods word to be his word on one Ground, and all other men on another ground, (that is, because they say it,) then we have two faiths and two Churches on two foundations. But if otherwise, then Pope and Council do as we must do (by their doctrine,) even believe it, because they say it themselves.
XXX. The Councils Decrees of Faith are so Voluminous that not one Priest of fourty knoweth them all; and not one lay man of many thousand: The very bulk therefore of your faith, must make it more uncertain than ours is: And who can tell whether he have it all?
XXXI. The words of your Councils are as obscure as Scripture words; and are controverted by your Doctors: And how can it be otherwise when humane language is so ambiguous, in such huge Volumes? How then shall the sense of your Councils themselves be certainly known?
XXXII. Councils are rarely extant: God only knoweth whether ever there will be anothor, (even a pretended one:) And must we have no judge in the mean time to give us a Certainty of the meaning of the very foregoing Councils themselves? Most confess that the Pope himself may err?
XXXIII. It is but few persons in the world that ever saw and consulted with a Pope and a General Council? How then shall we be all sure, what they said or determined? How know we whether the Records of them be truest in Crab, in Surius, in Nicolinus, in Binnius or in none of them? What was Caranzas's fault that he is blamed for? Which of the various Copies of Canons are true which are given us oft by the same Author? Who knoweth what alterations the Index expurgatorius (not infallible) maketh in the books? Have we no more or other Certainty of our Creed than of all these Councils, so variously and doubtfully delivered?
XXXIV. Seeing that each lay man that never saw Pope or Councils, can know them only by believing the Priest that telleth him, This the Church saith, is that Priest Infallible? Can no man be be certainer of the Creed than of that Priests words? Is not the faith of almost all your vulgar Papists, resolved into the Priests affirmation? And so is it not a humane faith? And how ignorant and wicked is many a Priest? Is our faith uncertain because we take it not on such a mans credit?
XXXV. If you say that an Implicite faith that all is true and of God which the Pope and Council saith is so, will save men; 1. How do the people know whether the Pope and Council determine any thing at all but on the Priests credit? 2. Then all Infidels may be saved without believing that there is a Saviour or salvation, so they do but believe in the Pope and Council. 3. Then believing in the Pope and Council is made far more necessary than believing in Christ. 4. Why will not an implicite belief in Christ go as far as yours?
XXXVI. By your way we can never be Certain when we have all the Christian faith: For more Councils may still make more decrees as hitherto they have done; and who knows when they will hae done? And so you make a Christian quite another thing, than he was in the primitive Church; And you cruelly make it far harder to be saved: when as then, a man might be saved that believed the Covenant and Creed; and foresaid Catechism; and now he must also believe so many Canons, as that the Councils containing them in the last Edition, exceed the purse of a poor Minister to buy them; and the time and brains of most to read them.
XXXVII. You confess all our faith and Religion to be true (as far as I can learn) but we deny all your additions: Both parties therefore being agreed of the truth of ours, it's like to be the surer. Our Religion in the Essentials, is nothing but the Sacramental Covenant, the Creed, Lords Prayer and Decalogue with the Law of Nature; And in the Integrals, it is nothing but the Scriptures which we receive as Canonical: And all this you commonly confess to be true: And I told you before how Bellarmine, Costerus and others confess less to be sufficient to Salvation (as commonly necessary.) But your additions we reject as uncertain or false.
XXXVIII. We see you to be a Carnal Kingdom set up against Christs express determination, Luk. 22. 26. 1. Pet. 5. 3. As the Geographia Nubiensis saith (In Vrbe Roma, &c. In the City of Rome are the seats of a King called the Pope: Nor is there any superiority in dignity above the Pope, and Kings are lower (or inferior) than he.) We see that you have compaginated your policie all for these carnal Ends; and that dignity, and dominion, and riches, and worldliness is promoted by your faith: And that your Religion is propagated and upheld by most inhumane cruelties and bloodshed, and they must be burned that seem not to believe as you do: And will it not raise suspicions in us of the fidelity of such men, when they make their own faith, and tell us that we have no certainty of ours but by their determination: When also we see the wickedness of mens lives among you, in common Fornication and other heinous sin; when the certainest faith, will have the holiest life, when it is Subjectively as well as Objectively certain.
XXXIX. You destroy or greatly discredit the Grand Evidence of the Christian faith, even Miracles: How then can your faith be the most Certain? For when you pretend that Miracles are as common through all the world as Priests Masses are (in turning bread into no bread as aforesaid) and yet no man seeth any proof of one such Miracle, when really it is no less than Christs Resurrection which you pretend to be so common before all the Churches; what is this but to tempt men to take all the Scripture and Apostolical Miracles to be no surer? And then where is our faith?
XL. Lastly, I end where I almost began: If our sense be true, the Pope and his Council are false, and therefore our faith not to be received only nor chiefly on their trust. For their faith teacheth us, not to believe Gods most Natural Revelations, to the sound senses and Intellective perception of all men in the world, as I have shewed about the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament: And when a Controversie it brought to sense it self we can bring it no lower: And when we must either believe your faith and its foundation false, or believe Gods most Natural Evident Revelation false, and all mens Senses and Intellective perception false, we are not able, I say not able, to be of your faith.
And now judge whose faith is more Certain the Protestants or the Papists? And whether you do well so zealously and busily; to make use of such soul-traps and fool-traps, as the paper is which I have answered.
September 12. 1672.
FINIS.