ful ignorance. And he that will give a wise answer to this question, -whether a papist dying a papist may be saved according to God's ordinary proceeding? must distinguish him according to these several considerations, and say, he may be saved, if his ignorance were either invincible, or at least unaffected and probable; if otherwise, without repentance he cannot.

To the rest of this Preface I have nothing to say, saving what hath been said, but this: that it is no just exception to an argument to call it vulgar and threadbare: truth can neither be too common nor superannuated, nor reason ever worn out. Let your answers be solid and pertinent, and we will never find fault with them for being old or common.

CHARITY

MAINTAINED BY CATHOLICS.

CHAPTER I.

The state of the question; with a summary of the reasons for which amongst men of different religions, one side only can be saved.

"NEVER is malice more indiscreet, than when it chargeth others with imputation of that, to which itself becomes more liable, even by that very act of accusing others; for though guiltiness be the effect of some error, yet usually it begets a kind of moderation, so far forth, as not to let men cast such aspersions upon others, as most apparently reflect upon themselves. Thus cannot the poet endure that Gracchus,* who was a factious and unquiet man, should be inveighing against sedition: and the Roman orator rebukes philosophers, who, to wax glorious, superscribed their names upon those very books which they entitled, Of the Contempt of Glory. What theu shall we say of D. Potter, who, in the title and text of his whole book, doth so tragically charge want of charity on all such Romanists as dare affirm that protestancy destroyeth salvation; while he himself is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman catholics? For, not satisfied with much uncivil language, in affirming the Roman churcht many ways to have played the harlot, and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ, and detestation of Christians; in styling her that proud and cursed dame of Rome, which takes upon her to revel in the house of God; in talking of an idols to be worshipped at Rome; he comes at length to thunder out his fearful sentence against her: For that|| mass of errors,' saith he, in judg inent and practice, which is proper to her, and wherein she differs from us, we judge a reconciliation impossible, and to us (who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions) damnable.' And in another place he saith, For us who¶ are convinced in conscience that she "Quis tulerit Gracchum," &c. i Page 11.

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errs in many things, a necessity lies upon us, even under pain of damnation, to forsake her in those errors. By the acerbity of which censure, he doth not only make himself guilty of that which he judgeth to be a heinous offence in others, but freeth us from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination. For if Roman catholics be likewise convicted in conscience of the errors of protestants, they may, and must, in conformity to the Doctor's own rule, judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable. And thus, all the want of charity, so deeply charged on us, dissolves itself into this poor wonder-Roman catholics believe in their conscience that the religion they profess is true, and the contrary false.

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2. Nevertheless, we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation. Far be it from us, by way of insultation, to apply it against protestants, otherwise than as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true church of Christ our Lord, within the communion whereof he hath confined salvation. Neither do we understand why our most dear countrymen should be offended if the universality be particularised under the name of protestants first given to certain Lutherans, who, protesting that they would stand out against the imperial decrees, in defence of the Confession exhibited at Augsburg, were termed protestants, in regard of such their protesting; which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from, and being disclaimed by, Calvinists and Zuinglians, our naining or exemplifying a general doctrine under the particular name of protestantism ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England.

3. "Moreover, our meaning is not, as misinformed persons may conceive, that we give protestants over to reprobation; that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation; that we hold their case desperate; God forbid! We hope, we pray for their conversion; and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires. Neither is our censure immediately directed to particular persons. The tribunal of particular judgments is God's alone; when any man, esteemed a protestant, leaveth to live in this world, we do not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in hell. For we are not always acquainted with what sufficiency or means he was furnished for instruction; we do not penetrate his capacity to understand his catechist; we have no revelation what light may have cleared his errors, or contrition retracted his sins, in the last moment before his death. In such particular cases we wish more apparent signs of salvation, but do not give any dogmatical sentence of perdrion How grievous sins disobedience, schism, and heresy are, is well known; but to discern how far the natural malignity of those great offences might be checked by ignorance, or some such less ning circunstance, is the office rather of prudence than of faith.

4 Thus we allow protestants as much charity as D. Potter spares us, for whom, in the words above mentioned, and elsewhere, het makes ignorance the best hope of salvation. Much less coinfort can we expect from the fierce doctrine of those chief protestants, who teach that for many ages before Luther Christ had no

visible church upon earth. Not these men alone, or such as they, but even the Thirty-nine Articles, to which the English protestant clergy subscribe, censure our belief so deeply, that ignorance can searce, or rather not at all, excuse us from damnation. Our doctrine of transubstantiation is affirmed to be repugnant to the plain words of Scripture ;* our masses to be blasphemous fables ;† with much more to be seen in the Articles themselves. In a certain conression of the Christian faith, at the end of their books of Psalms collected into metre, and printed cum privilegio regis regali, they call us idolaters, and limbs of antichrist; and having set down a catalogue of our doctrines, they conclude that for them we shall after the general resurrection be damned to unquenchable fire.

5. " But yet, lest any man should flatter himself with our charitable mitigations, and thereby wax careless in search of the true church, we desire him to read the conclusion of the second part, where the matter is more explained.

6. "And because we cannot determine what judgment may be esteemed rash or prudent, except by weighing the reasons upon which it is grounded, we will here, under one aspect, present a summary of those principles, from which we infer, that protestancy in itself unrepented destroys salvation; intending afterward to prove the truth of every one of the grounds, till, by a concatenation of sequels, we fall upon the conclusion, for which we are charged with want of charity.

7. "Now this is our gradation of reasons: Almighty God having ordained mankind to a supernatural end of eternal felicity, hath, in his holy provider.ce, settled competent and convenient means whereby that end may be attained. The universal grand origin of all such means is the incarnation and death of our blessed Saviour, whereby he merited internal grace for us, and founded an external visible church, provided and stored with all those helps which might be necessary for salvation. From hence it followeth, that in this church among other advantages, there must be some effectual means to beget and conserve faith, to maintain unity, to discover and condemn heresies, to appease and reduce schisms, and to determine all controversies in religion. For without such means the church should not be furnished with helps sufficient to salvation, nor God afford sufficient means to attain that end to which himself ordained mankind. This means to decide controversies in faith an religion (whether it should be the Holy Scripture, or whatsoever else) must be endued with an universal infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a Divine truth, that is, as revealed, spoken, or testified by Almighty God, whether the matter of its nature be great or small. For if it were subject to error in any one thing, we could not in any other yield it infallible assent; because we might with good reason doubt whether it chanced not to err in that particular.

8. "Thus far all must agree to what we have said, unless they have a mind to reduce faith to opinion. And even out of these grounds alone, without further proceeding, it undeniably follows,

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that of two men dissenting in matters of faith, great or small, few or many, the one cannot be saved without repentance, unless ignorance accidentally may in some particular person plead excuse. in that case of contrary belief, one must of necessity be held to oppose God's word of revelation sufficiently represented to his understanding by an infallable propounder; which opposition to the testimony of God is undoubtedly a damnable sin, whether otherwise the thing so testified be in itself great or small. And thus we have already made good what was promised in the argument of this chapter, that amongst men of different religions one is only capable of being saved.

9. "Nevertheless, to the end that men may know in particular what is the said infallible means upon which we are to rely in all things concerning faith, and accordingly we may judge in what safety or danger, more or less, they live; and because D. Potter descendeth to divers particulars about Scriptures and the church, &c.; we will go forward, and prove, that although Scripture be in itself most sacred, infallible, and Divine, yet it alone can not be to us a rule or judge, fit and able to end all doubts and debates emer→ gent in matters of religion; but that there must be some external, visible, public, living judge, to whom all sorts of persons, both learned and unlearned, may without danger of error have recourse, and in whose judgment they may rest for the interpreting and propounding of God's word or revelation. And this living judge we will most evidently prove to be no other but that holy catholic, apostolic, and visible church, which our Saviour purchased with the effusion of his most precious blood.

10. "If once therefore it be granted, that the church is that means which God hath left for deciding all controversies in faith, it manifestly will follow that she must be infallible in all her deter minations, whether the matters of themselves be great or small; because, as we said above, it must be agreed on all sides, that if that means which God hath left to determine controversies were not infallible in all things proposed by it, as truths revealed by Almighty God, it could not settle in our minds a firm and infallible belief of any one.

11. "From this universal infallibility of God's church, it followeth, that whosoever wittingly denieth any one point proposed by her, as revealed by God, is injurious to his Divine Majesty, as if he could either deceive or be deceived in what he testifieth: the averring whereof were not only a fundamental error, but would overthrow the very foundation of all fundamental points; and, therefore, without repentance, could not possibly stand with salvation.

12. "Out of these grounds we will show, that although the distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental be good and useful, as it is delivered aud applied by catholic divines, to teach what principal articles of faith Christians are obliged explicitly to believe; yet that it is impertinent to the present purpose of excusing any man from grievous sin, who knowingly disbelieves, that is, believes the contrary of that which God's church proposeth as Divine truth. For it is one thing not to know explicitly some