III. Creed, were obtruded upon us before by his predecessors as Discourse necessary articles of the Roman Faith, and required as necessary conditions of their communion, so as we must either receive these, or utterly lose them. This is the only difference,—that Pius the Fourth dealt in gross, his predecessors by retail. They fashioned the several rods, and he bound them up into a bundle. He saith, that "the new Creed is nothing but certain points of Catholic Faith proposed to be sworn of some ecclesiastical Catholic persons, as the Thirtynine Articles were in the Protestants' new Creed proposed by them to ministers 9. Pius the Fourth did not only enjoin all ecclesiastics, seculars, and regulars, to swear to his new Creed, but he imposed it upon all Christians, as veram Fidem Catholicam extra quam nemo salvus esse potest "" (they are the very words of the Bull)-" as the true Catholic Faith without believing of which no man can be saved." This is a greater obligation than an oath, and as much as the Apostles did impose for the reception of the Apostolical Creed. We do not hold our Thirty-nine Articles to be such necessary truths, "extra quam non est salus"-" without which there is no salvation;" nor enjoin ecclesiastic persons to swear unto them, but only to subscribe them, as theological truths, for the preservation of unity among us, and the extirpation of some growing errors. taining of Secondly, he adds, that the detaining of the Cup could be 2. The deno sufficient ground of separation, because Protestants do the Cup confess, that it "is an indifferent matter of itself, and no Sacrament just cause to separate communions." in the a just cause of separa Doth the Church of England confess it to be an indifferent tion. matter? No, nor any Protestant Church. All their public Confessions do testify the contrary. Nay more, I do not believe that any one Protestant in his right wits did ever confess any such thing. But this it is to nibble at authors, and to stretch and tenter their words by consequences quite beyond their sense. It may be that Luther at some time said some such thing*, but it was before he was a formed Protestant, whilst he was half PART sleeping half waking. Bellarmine styles it "in initio ApoI. stasia"." But after his eyes were well opened, he never confessed any such thing, but the just contrary. Suppose that Brentius saith, that "abstemious" persons, such "whose nature doth abhor wine," may receive under one kind"; what a pitiful argument is this, drawn from a particular rare case of invincible necessity, to the common and ordinary use of the Sacrament! The elephant was exempted from doing 223 obeisance to the lion, because he had no knees. But it is the height of injustice, to withhold his right from one man, because another cannot make use of it. Suppose that Melancthon declare his own particular opinion, that those countries where wine is not to be had should do well to make use of honied water in the Sacrament; what doth this signify as to the cause he hath in hand, whether they use some other liquor in the place of wine, or use no liquor at all? Invincible necessity doth not only excuse from one kind but from both kinds; and where the Sacrament cannot be had as it ought, the desire to have it sufficeth before God. We read of some Christians in India, where they had no wine, that they took dry raisins and steeped them in water a whole night, and used that liquor which they squeezed out of them in the place of wine for the Sacrament. It would trouble one as much in many parts of the world to find right bread, as wine. That nourishment which Indians eat in the place of bread, being made of the roots of plants, doth differ more from our bread made of wheat, than cyder or perry or honied water do differ from the juice of the grape, which are such many times as are able to deceive a good taste. If wine were as rare and precious in the world as right balm, which they make to be the matter of a Sacrament, there were more to be said in it. They themselves do teach, that it is absolutely necessary, that the Sacrament be consecrated in 2 [De Sacram. Euchar. lib. iv. c. 20, Op. tom. ii. p. 873. B; speaking of the present subject.] a [Apolog. Confess. Wirtemberg. (Pericop. ii. P. ii. c. 1. De Euchar., Op. tom. viii. pp. 518, 519. Tubing. 1590): quoted by Bellarm., ibid. c. 24. p. 914. D.] b [Lib. de Usu Integri Sacram., Op. tom. ii. p. 136. Witemb. 1601; quoted by Bellarm., ibid. p. 915. B. C.] Odoardus Barlosa, Forma Celebrandi, &c. [Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portughese dell' Indie Orientali, in Ramusio's Navigatione et Viaggi, tom. i. p. 313. Vencz. 1588.] d [Viz. ofthe Sacrament of Confirmation. See Bellarm., De Sacram., Confirm., lib. ii. c. 9.] III. wine, and that it be consumed by the priest. They who DISCOURSE can procure wine for the priest, may procure it for the people also, if they will. The truth is, all these are but made dragons. No man ever was so abstemious, but that he might taste so much wine tempered with water, as they use it, as might serve for the Sacrament, where the least imaginable particle conveyeth Christ to the receiver as well as the whole Chalice full. Neither is there any Christian country in the world, where they may not have wine enough for this use, if they please. natists. So, notwithstanding any thing he saith to the contrary, Papists right heirs their daily obtruding new articles of Faith, and their detain- of the Doing the Cup in the Sacrament, were just grounds of separation; but not our only grounds. We had twenty other grounds besides them. And therefore he had little reason to say, that at least the first Protestants were schismatics ;' and in this respect to urge the authority of Optatus against us, to prove us to be the "heirs of schismatics f." Optatus, in the place by him cited, speaks against the traditors, with whom we have nothing common, and the Donatists, their own ancestors, not ours, whose case is thus described there by Optatus," Cujus tu cathedram tenes, quæ ante ipsum Majorinum originem non habebat”—“Whose chair thou possessest, which had no original before Majorinus "," a schismatical Donatist. This is not our case. We have set up no new chairs, nor new altars, nor new successions, but continued those which were from the beginning. There is a vast difference between the erecting of a chair against a chair, or an altar against an altar, which we have not done; and the repairing of a Church or an altar wherein it was decayed, which we were obliged to do. Protestants In the next place, he endeavoureth to prove "by the Whether general doctrine of Protestants, that they differ from Papists and Papists in fundamental points necessary to salvation "." [Surv., c. vi. sect. 4. p. 91.] f Optat., [De Schism. Donatist.,] lib. [i. c. 10; quoted by R. C., Surv., ibid.] [Optat., ibid. For "tenes" Dupin reads "sedes."] [Surv., c. vi. sect. 4. p. 90; quoting Calvin, Institut., lib. iv. c. 12. § 2. (Op. tom. viii. p. 329; perhaps meant for § 21. p. 334: in § 2. there is no- differ in essentials. PART If they do, it is the worse for the Romanists; in the mean time the charity of Protestants is not to be blamed. We hope better of them; and, for any thing he saith to the contrary, we believe that they do not differ from us in fundamentals. But let us see what it is that the Protestants say. Some say that "Popish errors are damnable." Let it be admitted, many errors are damnable which are not in fundamentals. Errors which are damnable in themselves, are often pardoned by the mercy of God, who looks upon His creatures with all their prejudices. Others say, that "Popish and Protestant opinions are diametrally opposite k." That is certain; they are not all logomachies. But can there be no diametral opposition except it be in fundamentals? There are a hundred diametral oppositions in opinion among the Romanists themselves, yet he will not confess that they differ in fundamentals. Lastly, others say that 'the religion of Protestants, and the religion of the Church of Rome,' are not "all one for substance." I answer, first, that the word "substance" is taken sometimes strictly, for the essentials of any thing, which cannot be separated without the destruction of the subject. Thus a man is said to be the same man in "substance," while his soul and body are united, though he 224 have lost a leg or an arm, or be reduced to skin and bone. And in this sense the Protestant and Popish Church and religion are the same in "substance." At other times the word "substance" is taken more largely, for all real parts, although they be separated without the destruction, and sometimes with the advantage, of the subject. And so all the members, yea, even the flesh and blood and other huPs. cxxxix. mors, are of the "substance" of a man. So we read, "Thine eyes did see my substance being yet unperfect, and in Thy books were all my members written." And in this sense the Protestant and Popish religion are not the same in "substance." Secondly, the word 'substantials' may either signify old substantials, believed and practised by all Churches, in all ages, at all times, which are contained in the Apostles' 16. III. Creed, and thus our religion and the Roman religion are the DISCOURSE same in "substance;"-or new substantials, lately coined and obtruded upon the Church, as those articles which are comprehended in the Creed of Pius the Fourth,—and in this sense our religion and theirs are not the same in "substance." The former substantials were made by God, the latter substantials devised by man. SECTION THE FIFTH. I pleaded, that when all things were "searched to the Papists acknowledge bottom," Roman Catholics do "acknowledge the same pos- possibility sibility of salvation" to Protestants, which Protestants do of our salafford to Roman Catholics; and for proof thereof I produced much as we two testimonies of his own m To this he answers,― First, that Protestants do "allow saving faith and salvation to the Roman Church and to formal Papists," but Roman Catholics do "deny saving faith and salvation to the Protestant Church and to formal Protestants," and grant it only to "such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errors, who are not formal Protestants, but rather Protestantibus credentes",'-persons deceived by giving too much trust to Protestants "." We say the very same,—that we allow not saving faith or salvation to the Popish Church, as it is corrupted, but as it retains with Protestants the same common principles of saving truth, and is still jointed in part to the Catholic Church; nor to "formal Papists," but to such as err invincibly, and are prepared in their minds to receive the truth when God shall reveal it. Such are not "formal Papists," but 'Papistis credentes'—such as 'give too much trust to Papists.' His second answer is a second error, grounded only upon those imaginary ideas, which he hath framed to himself in his own head of the opinions of particular Protestants, and laboured much to little purpose to prove by conjectural con "[Referring to S. Augustin's distinction between "Hæreticus" and "Hæreticis credens." De Utilit. Credendi, c. i. Op. tom. viii. p. 45. A.] [Surv., c. vi. sect. 5. p. 92.] vation as of theirs. |