Brief Account of One Suggestion of the Romanist, Chapter 2 · Section 9
SECT. IX.
His eighth Ground yet more severe. His notion of Testimonies. Wits to play on them. Some place sometimes for other then rigorous demonstrations. The Romanists praetended veneration of Fathers and Councels, and skill in them. S. W's unkindnesse to Testimonies, obliging him to thinke their Doctors studyed them not. The truth examined, first for veneration of Fathers. Mr. Whites notion of Fathers, Cardinal Peroons censure of them. Secondly, for skill in them. The way of the Schools no friend to all the Fathers and Councels. The feuds in Oxford between Graecians and Trojans. The Franciscans Library. Nothing concluded against us from the number and learning of his Doctors, or their praetended conversation in all the Fathers and Councels. As little from their sincerity, Some examples of that kinde, one in the sixth African Councel, about a Canon of Nice, another about the place of Theodoret for Purgatory, A third transcribed from Mr. White, about the Molinists. Corruption of our nature no argument against us. S. W's change of medium from that of Possession to Tradition.
1. THE Eighth ground is yet more severe and confounding, under this form, that The proofs alleadged by Protestants against them, bear not even the weight of a probability to any prudent man, who penetrates and considers the contrary motives.] This as amazing as it is, will at large be demonstrated also, and then what retreat possible for S. W's adversary? Our case being thus desperate, we will again trie, whether our foreign may not stand us instead, and an auspicious Spring or plunge, the ultimus conatus, repell, and quit the danger; If it doe, it may be a seed of long life, for I have look'd over the leaf, and see, to my Readers joy, that this is the concluding ground of this Section.
2. It begins thus, For the proofs they alleadge are Testimonies.] I answer, they are indeed, and we have been taught to call Testimonies, witnesses of a debated truth, and such witnesses (if they be foreign, competent witnesses) proofs. But S. W. it seems, hath another description of them, [testimonies, saith he; i. e. words capable of divers senses] If that be all, we hope well of the foreign. For this is but the very trick played over before, and already discovered, and hath not so much as put on a new face, as even now Testimonies were allowed to doe.
3. 'Tis therefore added in terrorem, that words are capable of different senses, as they shall be playd upon by wits, Scholars and Criticks, and if S. W. be all these, how harmoniously and variously indeed will his Adversary, and his Testimonies be sure to be play'd upon? 'Tis no good time to stand at the gaze here, and examine whether as all wits be not Scholars, so all his Scholars be not Criticks, for if the terms be coincident, why might not Criticks have stood for all three? If thay be not, I should not be willing the life of my Client (Testimony) should depend upon a Jury of wits, such as S. W. which I cannot discover to be any deep either Scholar or Critick. But in great earnest, doth the trade of a Controvertist consist in this, to call for Testimonies, to magnifie Tradition, to make solemn appeals to Scriptures and Fathers, and when they are from undenyable authorities produced, then to send to the next Tavern for a wit to play upon them?
4. We have now the discovery (drop'd from him, 'tis possible, before he thought of it) how it comes to passe, what he next presseth, that [It is found by experience, that generally speaking, their party and ours give several meanings to all the Testimonies controverted between us.] for if when we bring plain words, and take no pains to affixe any other interpretations on them, than what either ordinary style, the law of spe…king, or the three parts of Grammar, foreign, and foreign, without any violence direct us to, the wits when we sleep, enter with his false finger, and take out a small syllable [not] or turn a comma, or colon into an interrogative, or tell us, the words signifie quite contrary to what all ordinary Readers understand of them▪ as,*Mr. Whites Apol. for Tradit. p. 153. search the Scriptures, for in them ye think to have aeternall life, i. e. ye deceive your selves if you think you have aeternal life in them (and then we shall be deceived indeed, if we think, or hope to be gainers by any Testimony) or instead of these nicer subtilties, cry out upon all wordish Testimonies, at a venture tell us they are capable of divers, though they have but one sense, they may be plaid upon by wits, though the wits have not yet been at leisure to play actually upon them; If, I say, this be but part of the character of such a Controvertist, as S. W. professes to be, I shall not account my self fitted with weapons to enter combate with him, yet think it may with any other man have the weight at least of a probability (and 'tis that is denyed in this eighth ground) that what is regularly concluded from the obvious both literal and rational importance of the plain words of a written testimony, of undenyable authority, may be sufficient to compose a debate betwixt two sober Disputers. For how oft soever I have been warned by S. W. and am in his Postscript (upon peril of his treating with me no longer) solemnly required to deal in no other, but a rigorously demonstrative way, I am still obstinately bent upon my course, to lie down in my bed, at the season of rest, though I know 'tis possible the roof may fall upon me there, to eat the meat, that is set before me, and expect to be nourished by it, though I cannot demonstrate, that 'tis not my poyson, to write on, till I am a little more tired, though I have no assurance, that one man shall read what I write, and so to produce testimonies to S. W. (and sometimes in Greek too) though it be possible he may finde occasion, as he saith, to raise several conjectures, to amuse the Reader, and instead of being wrought on, to exercise himself and Reader, and play upon them.
5. But if this be allowed him that by experience 'tis found that their party and ours give several meanings to all the testimonies controverted between them, he hath then a medium, which will prove all irrefragably on his side, for 'tis manifest, saith he, that computing the vastnesse of times and places in which our profession hath born sway; we have had neer a thousand Doctors for one of the Protestants, who though they highly venerated and were well versed in all the ancient Fathers and Councels, yet express'd no difficulty in those proofs, but made certain account, that all antiquity was for them.
6. But again how farre is this which begins with [It is manifest] from demonstrating or truely manifesting his conclusion? Let us first trie it by parts, every improvement of it single, 1. It is not demonstrated, that the multitude of their Doctors hath been so great, as he pretends. Gerson complains of it, as of an abomination, (declar. defect. vir. Eccl. that one held two hundred, another three hundred Ecclesiastical Benefices, and as that might be one, so we may guesse at many other, not improbable means to lessen the number of learned Doctors. 2. If the number were granted, yet it will not be concluded with any evidence, that if they that have had much longer time, and much larger circuit, and withall a fairer Sunshine, by much, of Halcyon dayes, to beget Doctors, than the Protestants, have proportionably had many (be it a thousand) more such Commencers in their Schools,] then all the proofs alleadged by Protestants bear not the weight of a probability? Are these materials able to furnish out a Syllogisme of immediate connexion of terms? 3. Will it follow, that because [S. W. saith of his Doctors, though perhaps he hath not conversed so much as with the writings of half a thousand of them, that they ever highly venerated, and were well versed in all the ancient Fathers and Councels] therefore they did indeed so venerate, and were well versed in all of them? In this place, first I must minde the Reader, who 'tis that saith it, even S. W. that*P. 19. not long since having commended his adversary for unwearied industry, and looking into such variety of authors, not only tells him, wh…t rare productions halfe that industry might be mother of, if imployed by some strong brain in a rational way, but withall gives him no obscure intimation, that this way of testimonies is not in it self much aestimable. And then if those Doctors brains were indeed weak, what advantage would it have been to them, to have layd out the most unwearied industry in Fathers and Councels, the height they should have ar ived to, would have been, but some declamatory proofs, some slight qu…tation arguments, as he there saith; But if their brains were strong, they must have been, in all obligation of conscience, imployed in the rational way, as that is visibly opposed to reading or producing of testimonies, (i. e. all the Fathers and Councels, which are the fountains of those Testimonies) And if it were so scandalous an error in course of study, thus to have mispent their time in this conversation, me thinks S. W. should not have so ill an opinion of his friends, as to conceit they highly venerated, or were well versed in all them.
8. If this have no more force with him, I must then apply my self more immediately to his proposition, that they ever highly venerated and were well versed, &c.] The former part of which, that respects the high veneration, at first sight is discovered to signifie nothing, by the good token of Memnons Statues, which had all their veneration by not*Ideo Splendebant quia non visebantu…. Tac. being convers'd with, or the mysteries of the Heathens, which were most venerated by those which knew least of them, and so there might be the fewer Epoptae, †Contenti sint ad venerationem figuris defendentibus a vilitate secretum, Macrob. in Som. Scip. l. 1. c. 2. Macrob. Ibid.veri arcani conscii, the more venerators there were. But even for those of them that have known most, 'tis not uneasi to discern what solid veneration they have afforded the Fathers, For first if Mr. White be to be heeded, there lies such an aequivocation in the word Fathers, as being discovered will bring this matter to a speedy issue (as farre as belongs to all the Fathers, in our present notion of them) for when he learn'd Latine, Pater, *Dailles Arts Discov. p. 182.saith he, signified the immediate Progenitor of the Sonne, and St. Paul is cited for it, telling his Converts they had no Father but himself, because he had in person begotten them in the Gospel, and though by ampliation, this word hath included also the parents of our Fathers, and upwards even to Adam, yet how it comes so to signifie the most remote, as to exclude the neerest, is, saith he, beyond his skill in Grammer] and more to this purpose to bring down the notion of Fathers from that of the Primitive Fathers of the Church or ancient Doctors only (as when the Romanists themselves call St. Bernard ultimum Patrum, the last of the Fathers) to his immediate Romish Ancestors, his Mothers, rather than Fathers, as elsewhere his Grammar of exact speaking directs him to style them, and if these doe not joyn with those remoter Fathers, we know how little shall be attributed to those. And then it matters not much to our present discourse, what veneration their Doctors be deemed to afford to all the (in this notion of) Fathers, (and indeed S. W's way of Oral Tradition will hardly admit of any other.) He knowes well enough that there are Fathers of the Countrey as well as the Family, and again Grand and first, as well as the last and immediate Fathers, so there are by analogie the Fathers of the whole Church, Christ, his Apostles, and their Successors, those, which by advantage of living neerest their times, and receiving their Doctrine from them, without mixture, are more competently qualified to testifie of it, then those that live at the utmost possible distance from them, And when to this propriety the use also of the style is added, and the title of the Fathers] in common speaking of Papists as well as Protestants, appropriated to those ancient, and not to these modern Fathers, I shall still hope we may be allow'd to use the word in this notion, yet not confining it to the ages simply first, but to all those that maintain the line of Doctrine from them without additions of their own, which whether the Romanist parents be guilty of in these later ages, is now the question, and till it be decided, excludes them, if the Grammatical notion of the word do not, from the number of the Fathers. If there be yet any doubt of this, I shall to his quotation from St. Paul return that other from our Saviour Mat. XXIII. 9. Call no man Father upon earth, and ask whether by the force of that Text all that cannot approve (not only pretend) their Doctrine to come from heaven, be not excluded from that title, and consequently their present Romish Fathers if they have no better evidence for themselves than that they had it from their immediate Ancestors, which we know is Mr. Whites Tradition Oral.
10. But then for those Romanists that have taken the Fathers in the stricter notion, only for the ancient writers of the Church of Christ, and declamed at others for Innovators, what substantial Reverence have they afforded them, when they seem not to favour their interests? Witnesse their Great Cardinal Peroon, who certainly was as conversant in them, as most of the Romanists, and professed several times that he had done the Church of Rome eminent service in this kinde, invented answers to the testimonies of the Fathers (brought by the Protestants) which were perfectly new, and had*Author ante me nullus, Ep. ad Bellarm. see Bellarmines life, l. 2. c. 7. R. 3. never any Author before him; How agreeable to veneration this inventing of new answers to their testimonies was, I take not on me to judge; The passages in him that I meant to referre to, are such as these, that the Fathers in their writings against the Gentiles said oft those things, not which they did believe, but dissembling or disguising them, said those things which served their cause to refute the Gentiles objections, and much more to the same purpose,†P. 1044, 1045. upon the head of invocation of Saints, that he might give some kinde of account, why the first Christian writers never spake as the Romanist would have men believe, on that subject, intimating hereby not obscurely, the too great (saith he, but seeming) accordance between the modern Roman practice, and that of their Gentile Ancestors, which when another Romanist, Ludov. Vives ingenuously confess'd to be real, or the†Divos Divatque non aliter venerantur quam Deum. Nec video in multis quod sit discrimen inter illorū opinionem de sanctis, & id quod Gentiles putabant de Diis suis. Not. in August. de Civ. Dei, l. 8. c. 27. Edit. Basil. Col. 494. B. difference to him invisible, the Inquisition was to passe on such plain dealing, and the words were appointed to be left out by the Lovane Divines, wherein the Paris Edition of St. Augustine 1613. hath readily obeyed them. But this by the way.
11. I shall no longer insist on this Theme, 'tis sure such veneration as this is no argument of what even now was p…esumed, that they made certain account that all antiquity was for them; If they did, there would have been lesse need of such extraordinary new answers of that Cardinal.
12. For the latter then, their being well versed, &c. before the truth of it will be acknowledged demonstrative, the quantity of the indefinite proposition must be resolved, for else he knows it will not be argumentative, and if upon inquiry it be found to be but particular, 'twill then fail still of being demonstrative, Is it then universally true, that all the Romish Doctors, supposing them to have had neer a thousand to one of ours, were very well versed in all the ancient Fathers and Councels, in the ages before Printing came into the world, or in the Century next preceding the Extinguishing Act?
13. Perhaps in the mention of all the Fathers and Councels, the Scriptures were purposely left out, least we should have heard of some one, or more such, as Andreas Carolostadius, that had been a Doctor of theirs, of good (above seven years) standing, before he read the Bible; and considering how little the people are allowed to know of it, we need not wonder, if there were more Doctors of no higher form in that kinde of knowledge.
14. But even for learning lesse profound, than that, or of all the Fathers and Councels, we may be allowed to make some question, if we consider their own complaints how little that was taken notice of for some time, in the bestowing of spiritual promotions, Alfonsus de Castro laments the state of the Church under*Mulios Papas adeò illiteratos, ut Grammaticam penitus ignorent. l. 1. de Haer. Popes plainly illiterate, and not a few, but many such; And when some have ascended that highest throne, at the age of ten, and eighteen years old, and having so little themselves cannot be presumed to have been any passionate advancers of learning, when we cannot but have heard of beardlesse youths and School-boyes, sitting in great gravity in Councels; when 'tis press'd (as none of the least grievances of our Church under the Papacy) by Peter Cassiodor about the year 1250. that the†Aliosque nonnullos literas ignorantes, et velut mittos et surdos ovium earundem non intelligentes balatum. Pet. Cass. de Tyran. Pont. Rom. injura Reg. et Eccl. Angl. good Pastors were removed, and the Popes Nephewes and Kindred and others advanced, some not knowing letters, mute and deaf, as he phraseth it, not understanding the bleating of the Sheep: and this no peculiar infelicity of that time, but 180. after, one of the complaints sent from this Nation to the Councel of Basil, was,*Vid. vit. Archiep. Chichle. p. 86. that puberes vix facti, they which were but boyes are admitted to the highest dignities of the Church, and yet neerer our times, 120 years after that, (in the year 1550.) Franc. Duarenus, a Romanist, and learned Lawyer of France, †Maximè hoc saeculo— quo Episcopatus et Sacerdotia indoctissimus hominibus & à religone alienis deferri solent. de Benef. l. 1. c. 11.makes the observation principally of the age wherein he lived, that Bishopricks and Priestly Offices used to be conferr'd on the most unlearned, and those that were farre from Religion; and (which is of a more comprehensive importance) the Court or Parliament of Paris, among their reasons given to King Lewis the eleventh, against the abrogation of the Pragmatick Sanction, *Libert. Eccl. Gall. Defens. in App. ad Duaren. de Benef.mentions this for one, that by the countinual applications to Rome for the praeferments of the Church, †Cap. LXIV.Scholastici conventus, et Ʋniversitates studiosorum desolatae ac desertae jacebant, the Scholastick meetings, and Ʋniversities of Students lay desolate and deserted; When ignorance was proclaimed the Mother of devotion, and Mr. White himself, at this day, a prime Luminary, in an age of noon-day light, can descend from his great learning to give many good words to the Colliers Faith, believing as the Church believes, and hath not yet demonstrated, that either the learned'st Doctor is bound to believe any otherwise, or consequently to impose this so ill method of study, as a poenance on himself, to be well versed in all the Fathers and Councels, or any other soft of wordish writings of dead men; In a word, when common fame is so ready to give in its suffrages, telling us of whole ages so scandalously ignorant, that Pasquil the marble Pillar in Rome, can tell Pope Eugenius, from the voice of the people,
C…mplures quoque Episcopos—
Ipso me mage saxeos videmus,
that a multitude of Bishops were ordinarily to be seen, more stony than himself, we may then take leave to advise farther before we yield, what S. W. cheaply assumes, that neer a thousand of theirs to one of our Doctors were all well versed in all the Fathers and Councels, especially when it is known to have fallen out so unluckily, that the Bishops, and others in Henry the Eighth's dayes, which concurred in the Exterminating Act, were learned beyond any example of former times, and did testifie their conversation in Fathers and Councels by what they wrote against the Papacy in that point, more then all their Ancestors had done before in defense of it.
15. In brief, for other parts of the world, I appeal to Erasmus (that lived in the wane of those dark times, and was a competent judge of abilities) whether the way of the Schools, even that which S. W. professes, St. Thomas's way, was really experimented to ingage men in the study of any (that is much lesse than all) the Fathers and Councels.
16. And for our Nation, a little search into our Antiquities, if it be but in the Ʋniversity of Oxford, as famous as any other,*Mat. Paris. Ann. 1252. Aemula Parisiensis, and,*Mat. Paris. Ann. 1252. the fountain and mother of our Christian Faith, †Rot. Parl. 1. Hen. VI. n. 43.will give us some light; for there we have the memoires of the bitter feuds betwixt the Graecians and the Trojans, implacably pursued for some time, till it was composed at length by Sir Thomas Mores Letter, and the interposition of his authority; This assures us, that even thus late (what think we then of the Century foregoing?) a competent part of the Doctors had not much Greek, and were not all of them rarely qualified for conversation with all the Ancient Fathers and Councels, when S. W's Reader may have heard, that very many, if not the most aestimable, and venerable of them were written in that language, which was a Barbarian to so many of those Doctors. This I take to be somewhat neer demonstrating, that they that were avowedly but Trojans, that understood no Greek, as they had not the gift of Tongues, so they could not work such miracles, as to be very well versed in Greek Writers.
17. And even for the Latine Fathers and Councels, a man might make some guesse from the account that*De Scriptor. Angl. To. IV. p. 217. Jo. Leland gives of the Franciscans Library at Oxford, in…iched by the bountifull Legacy of Bishop Grosthead, but sadly despoiled by the Friers, who, saith he, had filched and dissipated all the books, but, if we may judge by symptomes, very little of the learning. The Records of those dark times have not yet left us unfurnished of many other the like passages, which will render it probable that all the Doctors of that age were not well versed in all the Fathers and Councels. And for their venerable Councel of Trent it self, we cannot but observe, what the Historian tells us,… Hist. of Coun. Trent. p. 155. in the debate about the Latine translation of the Bible…; There was, saith he, much difference between some few who had good knowledge of the Latine, and some taste of the Greek, (but few, it seems, of such in that Assembly) and others who were ignorant in the Tongues: Ibid.and speaking of Cardinal Cajetane as of the prime Divine of that and many more ages, unto whom there was no Praelate or person in the Councel who would not yield in learning, or thought himself too good to learn of him, and of his study of the Scripture, expounding not the Latine translation, but the Hebrew roots of the Old, and Greek of the New Testament, he addes; In which Tongues being ignorant himself, he imployed men of good understanding, who made construction of the Text unto him word by word— It were not difficult to inforce this observation, and shew the accordance exact in other their learnedst Doctors of those times. But I shall not endeavour to help this to its probabilities, but only reminde, what I have oft told him, that when this point, which we have now before us, was once studied, and the Fathers and Councels consulted in it, the whole Army of Doctors and learned men uniformly consented to what we contend for.
18. But then 3. how is it approved to be evident, that all the Doctors express'd no difficulty in those proofs, or how doth this advance S. W's interests? 1. They that considered not those proofs, could finde no difficulty in them, 2. They that considered them, and found difficulties, might yet have motives to disswade expressing themselves. 3. They that did express themselves, might if they were not sentenced by them, be many of them concealed from posterity, if they were cast out by censures, and the noyse of them so loud, that we hear of it (as sure Bishop Grosthead was, when he appealed from the*Hen. Knighton, de eveniub. Angl. l. 2. c. 15. Popes Court to the Tribunal of Christ) they might passe for Schismaticks upon the same account that we are put in that form.
19. Lastly, how is it demonstrated, that all their Doctors made certain account that all antiquity was for the Doctrine that S. W. now defends? May not the affirming this (if it be not absolutely false) be the fallacy plurium interrogationum? They 1. knew, or might know that the Pope was Bishop of Rome by succession from St. Peter, and St. Paul, and so by divine right, and by the same power instated in a Primacy over his own Province, 2. that by Canon and Custome of the Church, as Bishop of the Imperial City, he was the first and chief of the West, styled Patriarch, 3. That by his own ambition, and the advantage of Phocas's collation on Boniface III. he came to be call'd Ʋniversal Bishop, and to assume, and exercise many acts of jurisdiction accordingly, and so in other parts by the concession or connivence of Princes, and 4. that at length he began to believe himself, at least perswade others, that this was it (and not the bare forementioned Primacy) which was conferred on St. Peter first, and so on him by Christ. And they that saw, and were well advised of all this, might make account, that the first antiquity was for the first of these, a second sort of antiquity, after Constantines time, for the second of these, and though they knew nothing in antiquity for the two latte, might yet live quietly under those assumers. And this is all he hath advanced by his insisting again on the number and learning of his Doctors.
20. For their sincerity, he saith, it ought not to run in a lesse proportion, then their number, and I say so too in his very style, that it ought not; Yet because he addes, he hears not it is praetended, that the contrary can be evidently manifested, and so he need not take pains to prove it, It is not amisse shortly to intimate, how farre this is from demonstrative, if it be but by minding him of two passages which he cannot but have heard of, the one in former, the other in later times, of some publike cognisance both.
21. First I may be allowed to suppose, that he may have heard of the managery of the cause concerning the Popes receiving appeals from Africk, in the sixth great Councel of Carthage, in debating of which the Popes Legates, in the name of their Master, alleadged a Canon of the first Councel of Nice, and the Africans denyed there was any such Canon, and upon sending to the Patriarchs of the East for a perfect Volume of Canons, there was no such Canon to be found, as the Popes Legates alleadged; I need not ask what sincerity there was in this▪ I know what is answered to this by the great Abetters of the Roman cause, Card. Bellarmine and Baronius, confessing that this was a mistake, and to be rectifyed by substituting, in stead of the Nicene, the Sardican Canon, but first this was no great essay of their conversation, and skill in the Councels, which just now was pleaded, to mistake a Grand General Councel of Nice, for the petty …ardican. Secondly, 'tis evident enough that the Councel of Chalcedon, 105 years after that of Sardice, in the reckoning of the Canons of the Ʋniversal Church, mentions not the Sardican at all. And Pope Nicholas the first writing to Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, testifies that the Greeks receive not that Councel (see his sixth Epistle in the sixth tome of the Councels, p. 494.) reciting their words, which also are put into Gratians Codex, Can. quod dicitis, 16. dist. which sufficiently evacuates the force of that answer, without farther reflecting on the quality of that Councel, all the Eastern Bishops being departed, and but twenty Western subscribing it, as Sulpitius tells us Vol. 1. Concil. and all in a maner transacted by Osius Cordubensis (as by the Canons appears) of whom we are told, that he had been twice excommunicated, first for favouring the Donatists, and then the Arians. But this by the way.
22. The second is more fresh, in another difference of the Papal concernment, that of Purgatory, between them and the Greeks, when there was but one testimony, that could have any force in it to the Romanists conclusion, that out of Theodoret, upon examination of all his writings *foreign. Grac. Apol. l. 1. p. 145. 147.he was not found to have said any such thing, as was by the Latines cited f…om him, And this was no secret, being by the Greeks declared to the Councel of Basil.
23. Being thus far entred on an ungratefull subject, I shall not allow my self any farther line, than by reflecting on one passage of Mr. Whites, which may not be either offensive or unheard of to S. W. being in his irrefragable Apology for Tradition, cited from the very Manuscript Acts of some Congregations at Rome, not long before the death of the last Pope. The businesse of no small concernment, and acted,†Apol. p. 62. he saith, on one part by the choicest wits, and ancientest Scholars could be pickt out of that so famed society (the great maintainers of the Papal Supremacy, against the praetensions of Bishops) and the manner and upshot of the managery he gives you in these words [But let us hear the Pope speak, Ʋpon the 8. of July was held the second Congregation, His Holynesse began with these words, Nos personaliter vidimus congeriem locorum quam vos qui Molinam defenditis induxistis ex Augustino et nullus inventus est qui faveat, imo contrarium tenuit Augustinus, Ʋnde *It is wonderful you should use so many artifices.mirum quod tot artibus utamini, And hence it seems they were forced to corrupt St. Austin to the Popes face, the 30. of September following, which being discovered, the Author dyed of melancholy and disgrace, Again in the tenth Congregation, the same Pope taxed them, quod Scholasticis maximè suis, non Scripturâ Conciliis, Patribus uterentur, a sign how sound their way of Doctrine is, how sincere their proceedings to defend it.] Thus far Mr. White, and me thinks somewhat home to the present purpose, both for the way of learning (not that of the Fathers and Councels) and also for the sincerity, and both exemplified in those men which are not deemed the least eminent of the Romanists, and are now sure advanced to a much higher pitch of the one (whatsoever proportion will be allowed them of the other) than was observable in the times before the Extinguishing Act; And 'tis farther observable, that those which were thus paradigmatized for unsincerity, and that, as he saith, by the Pope himself, did soon obtain a definition on their side from the same Pope, the Constitution of Pope Innocent the 10th, An. 1653.
24. I shall make no farther additions to this out of mine own Supellex, nor examine the solidity of what Hildebrand the advancer of the Papacy to its present greatnesse, hath defined concerning the*Romanus Pontifex si Canonicè fuerit ordinatus meritis Beati Petri indubitantèr efficitur sanctus. Sent. 22. sanctified, as well as infallible state of those that Canonically ascend that throne, that by the merits of St. Peter they are undoubtedly made holy, (and then I know not what priviledge he may have of conveighing this to all that shall espouse so sanctified a cause.) Yet not for this, but other reasons, especially because I abhorre the passing sentence on any man else, but my self, I shall no farther reply to that head of sincerity, than to minde him of the no perfect invinciblenesse of his demonstration, which in this particular depends wholly on his not hearing that it is praetended that the contrary is made manifest, and therefore that if his adversary should now tell him, and so he now hear it, or because many things are said, which he hears not, or because many things are manifest, which are not said to be so, and lastly many things might be made manifest, which are not, his conclusion that holds its being so precariously, and by the courtesie of so many casualties, is still a demonstrative conclusion of the new mode, as homogeneous to the former, as if the seventh and eigth Ground had been both framed, and proved by the same numerical S. W.
25. Meanwhile I cannot omit to take notice of one auxiliary consideration, taken in to approve the sincerity of his Doctors, considering, saith he, the corruptnesse of our nature, the praejudice ought rather to stand on the part of the disobeyers than obeyers of any Government. And truely I should think so too, though I did not consider the corruptnesse of our nature, supposing 'twere, as S. W. praetends, a Government of Gods erecting, a reality, and not only a phasme of Government; But in our question I discern not, why the corruption of our nature may not incline some to assume, what is not their due, as well as others to deny it them. I suppose S. W. had a reach that I cannot aim at, and I will not unnecessarily disturb him in his considerations.
26. At such a rate of demonstrating as this, he hath certainly gained his designed purchase, and so goes off the Stage with no lesse than a thousand to one in a moral aestimation in the means of understanding aright these Testimonial proofs] 'Twas but a meer charity that he did not drop a Cyphre or two more, and say ten, or an hundred thousand to one, by which reckoning I cannot but yield to him, and think he hath reason not to take that to have any real probability, which hath such vast oddes, be it but a thousand to one against it. Only the unluckinesse of it is, that some things come to passe which S. W. by giving heed to his own arguings, thinks most improbable, and so it will often be, till he hath got cure for that (some call it diabetick) passion, by which demonstrations such as they are, run from him so insensibly.
27. But I must look forward, and then I finde by his next words that I have insisted too long on the survey of this proof, when, though he have made use of it twice, for the confirming his seventh and eighth ground, yet he better bethinks himself, and (as he now saith) stands not much upon it. And if the Printer had spared his pains, and not stood upon it also, I might have been some minutes sooner at my journeys end. 'Tis now too late to complain of it. But why is this medium, of so severe, and immediate connexion of terms, despised, and cast off, as soon as it hath done its best for him? He tells it plainly, He hath a farre better game to play] It seems if he had not this despicable creature, as mean an account as he now makes of it, should have been kept up in a reputation, and traffick'd for him still. And I cannot but say, I am half sorry for the change, having gotten some little acquaintance with this medium, which took off the ruggednesse and amazingnesse of it. But in what suit lies his better game? Why he soon tells us, he means the force of Tradition.
28. And then unexpectedly in the close of a very long and tough Section, which hath cost me at least eight times as much paper, to give it the due consideration, I must begin again, and as if the vast efficacy of Possession were blasted, or thunderstruck and vanished, and so he could not think fit to stand much upon that, at least on that alone, without this fresh supply from another Coast, in comes his new trick upon the Cards, the very Idaea of Rushworths Dialogues, that we might not doubt from what architect his Grounds were derived to him, the force of Tradition.
29. But for this I must take a little breath, before I set to it, and though he is so familiar with it, as to introduce it here at the fag end of a Section, yet I must use it with more respect, and solemnly dedicate, and set apart a whole Chapter for it; and that I shall not refuse to doe, that I may not disappoint all his former challenges, and attempts to ingage me in this point.