CHAP. II.

What is that means, whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding,
and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion.

OF our estimation, respect, and reverence to holy Scripture, even Protestants themselves
do in fact give testimony, while they possess it from us, and take it upon the integrity
of our custody. No cause imaginable could avert our will from giving the function of
supreme and sole Judge to holy Writ, if both the thing were not impossible in it self,
and if both reason and experience did not convince our understanding, that, by this
Assertion Contentions are increased, and not ended. We acknowledge holy Scripture
to be a most perfect Rule, for as much as a Writing can be a Rule: We only deny that it excludes,
either divine Tradition, though it be unwritten, or an external Judge to keep, to propose, to interpret
in a true, Orthodox, and Catholique sense. Every single Book, every Chapter, yea, every period of holy
Scripture is infallibly true, and wants no due perfection. But must we therefore inferr, that all other Books
of Scripture are to be excluded, lest, by addition of them, we may seem to derogate from the perfection
of the former? When the first Books of the Old and New Testament were written, they did not exclude
unwritten Traditions, nor the Authority of the Church to decide Controversies; and who hath
then so altered their nature, and filled them with such jealousies, as that now they cannot agree for
fear of mutual disparagement? What greater wrong is it for the written Word, to be compartner now
with the unwritten, than for the unwritten, which was once alone, to be afterward joyned, with the
written? Who ever heard, that, to commend the fidelity of a Keeper, were to disauthorize the thing
committed to his custody? Or that, to extol the integrity and knowledge, and to avouch the necessity
of a Judge in suits of Law, were to deny perfection in the Law? Are there not in Commonwealths,
besides the Laws, written and unwritten customs, Judges appointed to declare both the one,
and the other, as several occasions may require?
2. That the Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies of Faith, we gather it very clearly, From
the quality of a writing in general: From the nature of holy Writ in particular, which must be believed
as true, and infallible: From the Editions, and Translations of it: From the difficulty to understand

it without hazard of Error: From the inconveniences that must follow upon the ascribing of sole Judicature
to it: and finally, From the Confessions of our Adversaries. And, on the other side, all these difficulties
ceasing, and all other qualities requisite to a Judge concurring in the visible Church of Christ
our Lord, we must conclude, that She it is, to whom, in doubts concerning Faith and Religion, all
Christians ought to have recourse.
3. The name, notion, nature, and properties of a Judge cannot in common reason agree to any
meer writing, which, be it otherwise in it its kind, never so highly qualified with sanctity and infallibility;
yet it must ever be, as all writings are, deaf, dumb, and inanimate. By a Judge, all wise
men understand a person endued with life, and reason, able to hear, to examine, to declare his mind
to the disagreeing parties, in such sort as that each one may know whether the sentence be in favour of
his cause, or against his pretence; and he must be applyable, and able to do all this, as the diversity of
Controversies, Persons, Occasions, and Circumstances may require. There is a great and plain distinction
betwixt a Judge and a Rule. For, as in a Kingdom, the Judge hath his Rule to follow, which
are the received Laws and Customs; so are not they fit or able to declare, or be Judges to themselves, but
that office must belong to a living Judge. The holy Scripture may be, and is, a Rule; but cannot be a
Judge, because, it being always the same, cannot declare it self any one time, or upon any one occasion,
more particularly then upon any other; and let it be read over an hundred times, it will be still
the same, and no more fit alone to terminate Controversies in Faith, than the Law would be to end
suits, if it were given over to the fancy, and gloss of every single man.
4. This difference betwixt a Judge and a Rule, D. Potter perceived, when, more than once having
stiled the Scripture a Judge, by way of correcting that term, he adds, or rather a Rule, because he knew
that an inanimate writing could not be a Judge. From hence also it was, that, though Protestants in their
beginning affirmed Scripture alone to be the Judge of Controversies; yet, upon a more advised reflection,
they changed the phrase, and said, that not Scripture, but the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture, is Judge
in Controversies. A difference without a disparity. The Holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture, is no
more intelligible to us, than the Scripture in which he speaks: as a man speaking only Latin, can be no
better understood, than the tongue wherein he speaketh. And therefore to say, A Judge is necessary for
deciding Controversies, about the meaning of Scripture, is as much as to say, He is necessary to decide
what the holy Ghost speaks in Scripture. And, it were a conceit, equally foolish and pernitious, if one
should seek to take away all Judges in the Kingdom, upon this nicety, that, albeit Laws cannot be
Judges, yet the Law-maker speaking in the Law, may perform that Office; as if the Law-maker
speaking in the Law, were with more perspicuity understood, than the Law whereby he speaketh.

An ANSWER to the SECOND CHAPTER.
Concerning the means, whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to
our Understanding; and which must determine Controversies in Faith
and Religion.

AD §. 1. He that would usurp an absolute Lordship and tyranny
over any people, need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty
of abrogating and disanulling the Laws, made to
maintain the common liberty; for he may frustrate their intent,
and compass his own design as well, if he can get the
power and authority to interpret them as he pleases, and add to them
what he pleases, and to have his interpretations and additions stand for
Laws; if he can rule his people by his Laws, and his Laws by his Lawyers.
So the Church of Rome, to establish her tyranny over mens consciences, needed
not either to abolish or corrupt the holy Scriptures, the Pillars and supporters
of Christian liberty (which in regard of the numerous multitude of
Copies dispersed through all places, translated into almost all Languages,
guarded with all sollicitous care and industry, had been an impossible attempt;)
But the more expedite way, and therefore more likely to be successeful,
was, to gain the opinion and esteem of the publique and authoriz'd
Interpreter of them, and the Authority of adding to them what Doctrin
she pleased under the title of Traditions or Definitions. For by this means,
she might both serve her self of all those clauses of Scripture, which might
be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences,
which in case the Scripture had been abolished, she could not have done;
and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited, or her corruptions
and abuses reformed by them; this being once setled in the minds

of men, that unwritten doctrins, if proposed by her, were to be received with
equal reverence to those that were written; and that the sense of Scripture was
not that which seemed to mens reason and understanding to be so, but that which
the Church of Rome should declare to be so, seemed it never so unreasonable
and incongruous. The matter being once thus ordered, and the holy Scriptures
being made in effect not your Directors and Judges (no farther than
you please) but your servants and instruments, alwayes prest and in readiness
to advance your designes, and disabled wholly with minds so qualified
to prejudice or impeach them; it is safe for you to put a crown on their
head, and a reed in their hands, and to bow before them, and cry, Hail King
of the Jews! to pretend a great deal of esteem, and respect, and reverence to
them, as here you do. But to little purpose is verbal reverence without entire
submission and syncere obedience; and, as our Saviour said of some,
so the Scripture, could it speak, I believe would say to you, Why call ye
me Lord, Lord, and do not that which I command you? Cast away the vain
and arrogant pretence of infallibility, which makes your errors incurable.
Leave picturing God, and worshipping him by pictures. Teach not for Doctrin
the commandements of men. Debarr not the Laity of the Testament
of Christ's Blood. Let your publique Prayers, and Psalms, and Hymns be
in such language as is for the edification of the Assistents. Take not from
the Clergy that liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them. Do not
impose upon men that Humility of worshipping Angels which S. Paul condemns.
Teach no more proper sacrifices of Christ but one. Acknowledg
them that die in Christ to be blessed, and to rest from their labours. Acknowledge
the Sacrament after Consecration, to be Bread and Wine, as well as
Christs body and bloud. Acknowledg the gift of continency without Marriage,
not to be given to all. Let not the weapons of your warfare be carnal,
such as Massacres, Treasons, Persecutions, and, in a word, all means either
violent or fraudulent: These and other things, which the Scripture commands
you, do, and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you
deserve; but till you do so, to talk of estimation, respect, and reverence to
the Scripture, is nothing else but talk.
2. For neither is that true which you pretend, That we possess the Scripture
from you, or take it upon the integrity of your Custody; but upon Universal
Tradition, of which you are but a little part. Neither, if it were true that
Protestants acknowledged, The integrity of it to have been guarded by your
alone Custody, were this any argument of your reverence towards them.
For first, you might preserve them entire, not for want of Will, but of
Power to corrupt them, as it is a hard thing to poyson the Sea. And then having
prevailed so farr with men, as either not to look at all into them, or but
only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them, and to
see nothing in them, though as cleer as the sun, if it any way made against
you, you might keep them entire, without any thought or care to conform
your doctrin to them, or reform it by them (which were indeed to reverence
the Scriptures;) but, out of a perswasion, that you could qualify them
well enough with your glosses and interpretations, and make them sufficiently
conformable to your present Doctrin, at least in their judgement, who
were prepossessed with this perswasion, that your Church was to Judge of the
sense of Scripture, not to be judged by it.

3. For, whereas you say, No cause imaginable could avert your will, for
giving the function of supreme and sole Judge to holy Writ; but that the thing
is impossible, and that by this means controversies are increased and not ended:
you mean perhaps, - That you can or will imagine no other cause but these.
But sure there is little reason you should measure other mens imaginations
by your own, who perhaps may be so clouded and vailed with prejudice,
that you cannot, or will not, see that which is most manifest. For what indifferent
and unprejudicate man may not easily conceive another cause which
(I do not say does, but certainly) may pervert your wills, and avert your
understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a tryall by
Scripture? I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which
by this means you would fall into, of losing the Opinion which men have
of your Infallibility, and consequently your power and authority over
mens consciences, and all that depends upon it. So that though Diana of the
Ephesians be cryed up, yet it may be feared that with a great many among
you (though I censure or judge no man) the other cause which wrought
upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen, may have with you also the more effectual,
though more secret influence: and that is, that by this craft we have
our living; by this craft, I mean, of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent
tryal of your Religion by Scripture, and making them yield up
and captivate their judgement unto yours. Yet had you only said de facto,
that no other cause did avert your own will from this, but only these which
you pretend; out of Charity I should have believed you. But seeing you
speak not of your self, but of all of your Side, whose hearts you cannot
know; and profess not only, That there is no other cause, but that No
other is imaginable, I could not let this passe without a censure. As for
the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies, that
is, the sole Rule for men to judge them by (for we mean nothing else)
you only affirm it without proof, as if the thing were evident of it self.
And therefore I, conceiving the contrary to be more evident, might well
content my self to deny it without refutation. Yet I cannot but desire you to
tell me, If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie, how shall that
touching the Church and the Notes of it, be determined? And if it be the sole
Judge of this one, why may it not of others? Why not of All? Those only
excepted wherein the Scripture it self is the subject of the Question, which
cannot be determined but by natural reason, the only principle, beside Scripture,
which is common to Christians.
4. Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them,
Scripture is innocent of it; as also this opinion, That controversies are to be
decided by Scripture. For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgements
to Scripture, and that only, and would require no more of any man
but to do so, it were impossible but that all Controversies, touching things
necessary and very profitable should be ended: and if others were continued
or increased, it were no matter.
5. In the next words we have direct Boyes-play; a thing given with one
hand, and taken away with the other: an acknowledgment made in one
line, and retracted in the next, We acknowledg (say you) Scripture to be a perfect
rule, for as much as a Writing can be a Rule; only we deny that it excludes
unwritten Tradition. As if you should have said, We acknowledg it to be as
perfect a Rule as a Writing can be; only we deny it to be as perfect a Rule

as a writing may be. Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgment,
or retract your retractation of it; for both cannot possibly stand together.
For if you will stand to what you have granted, That Scripture is as
perfect a Rule of Faith as a writing can be: you must then grant it both so
Compleat, that it needs no addition, and so evident, that it needs no interpretation:
For both these properties are requisite to a perfect Rule, and a
writing is capable of both these properties.
6. That both these properties are requisite to a perfect Rule, it is apparent:
Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging
to its integrity; As, he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining
to the Integrity of a Man; and therefore that which wants any
accession to make it a perfect Rule, of it self is not a perfect Rule. And
then, the end of a Rule is to regulate and direct. Now every instrument is
more or lesse perfect in its kind, as it is more or lesse fit to attain the end
for which it is ordained: But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so,
is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so: Therefore it is requisite
also to a Rule (so farr as it is a Rule) to be evident; otherwise indeed it is
no Rule, because it cannot serve for direction. I conclude therefore, that
both these properties are required to a perfect Rule: both to be so compleat
as to need no Addition; and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation.
7. Now that a writing is capable of both these perfections, it is so plain,
that I am even ashamed to prove it. For he that denies it, must say, That
something may be spoken which cannot be written. For if such a compleat and
evident Rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth, as you pretend
it may, and is; and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be
written; then such a compleat and evident Rule of Faith may also be written.
If you will have more light added to the Sun, answer me then to these
Questions. Whether your Church can set down in writting all these,
which she pretends to be divine unwritten Traditions, and add them to the
verities already written? And, Whether she can set us down such interpretations
of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations?
If she cannot, then she hath not that power which you pretend
she hath, of being an Infallible Teacher of all divine verities, and an
infallible Interpreter of obscurities in the Faith: for she cannot teach us
all divine verities, if she cannot write them down; neither is that an interpretation
which needs again to be interpreted. If she can; Let her do it,
and then we shall have a writting, not only capable of, but, actually endowed
with, both these perfections, of being both so compleat as to need
no Addition, and so evident as to need no Interpretation. Lastly, whatsoever
your Church can do or not do, no man can, without Blasphemy, deny,
that Christ Jesus, if he had pleased, could have writ us a Rule of Faith so
plain and perfect; as that it should have wanted neither any part to make
up its integrity, nor any cleerness to make it sufficiently intelligible. And if
Christ could have done this, then the thing might have been done; a writting
there might have been, indowed with both these properties. Thus therefore
I conclude; a writing may be so perfect a Rule, as to need neither Addition
nor Interpretation; But the Scripture you acknowledg a perfect Rule for as
much as a writing can be a Rule, therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation.

8. You will say, that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith,
yet it must be beholding to Tradition to give it this Testimony, that it is a
Rule of Faith, and the Word of God. I answer: First, there is no absolute necessity
of this. For God might, if he thought good, give it the attestation of
perpetuall miracles. Secondly, that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of
Faith, another to be proved so unto us. And thus though a writing could
not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith, by its owne saying so, for
nothing is proved true by being said or written in a book, but only by Tradition
which is a thing credible of it self; yet it may be so in it self, and
contain all the material objects, all the particular articles of our Faith,
without any dependance upon Tradition; even this also not excepted, that
this writing doth contain the rule of Faith. Now when Protestants affirm
against Papists, that Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith, their meaning is not,
that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved, which are to be
believed: For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer, that there
is a God, or that the book called Scripture is the word of God; For he that
will deny these Assertions when they are spoken, will believe them
never a whit the more, because you can shew them written: But their meaning
is, that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine, and a Rule
of Faith, as Papists and Protestants do, contains all the material objects
of Faith; is a compleat and total, and not onely an imperfect and a partial
Rule.
9. But every Book, and Chapter, and Text of Scripture is infallible and
wants no due perfection, and yet excludes not the Addition of other books of
Scripture; Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition
of unwritten Tradition. I answer; Every Text of Scripture though
it hath the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture, yet it hath not the
perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith; and that only is the perfection
which is the subject of our discourse. So that this is to abuse your Reader
with the ambiguity of the word Perfect. In effect, as if you should say, A
text of Scripture may be a perfect Text, though there be others beside it;
therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith, though
there be other parts of this Rule, besides the Scripture, and though the
Scripture be but a part of it.
10. The next Argument to the same purpose is, for Sophistry, cosen-german
to the former. When the first books of Scripture were written, they did
not exclude unwritten Tradition: Therefore now also, that all the books of
Scripture are written, Traditions are not excluded. The sense of which argument
(if it have any) must be this. When only a part of the Scripture was
written, then a part of the divine doctrine was unwritten; Therefore now
when all the Scripture is written, yet some part of the divine doctrine is yet
unwritten. If you say, your Conclusion is not, that it is so, but, without disparagement
to Scripture, may be so: without disparagement to the truth
of Scripture, I grant it; but without disparagement to the Scripture's being
a perfect Rule, I deny it. And now the Question is not of the Truth,
but the perfection of it; which are very different things, though you would
fain confound them. For Scripture might very well be all true, though
it contain not all necessary Divine Truth. But unlesse it do so, it cannot
be a perfect Rule of Faith; for that which wants any thing is not perfect.
For, I hope, you do not imagine, that we conceive any antipathy

49

between God's Word written and unwritten, but that both might very well
stand together. All that we say is this, that we have reason to believe that
God, de facto, hath ordered the matter so, that all the Gospel of Christ,
the whole Covenant between God and man, is now written. Whereas, if
he had pleased, he might so have disposed it, that, part might have been
written, and part unwritten: but then he would have taken order, to
whom we should have had recourse, for that part of it which was not
written; which seeing he hath not done (as the progresse shall demonstrate)
it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten. We know no man
therefore that sayes, It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned
with the unwritten, if there were any wherewith it might be joyned:
but that, we deny. The fidelity of a keeper may very well consist with
the authority of the thing committed to his custody. But we know no one
society of Christians that is such a faithfull keeper as you pretend. The
Scripture it self was not kept so faithfully by you, but that you suffered
infinite variety of Readings to creep into it; all which could not possibly be
divine, and yet, in several parts of your Church, all of them, until the
last Age, were so esteemed. The interpretations of obscure places of
Scripture, which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians,
are wholly lost; there remains no certainty scarce of any one.
Those Worlds of Miracles, which our Saviour did, which were not written,
for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men. And
many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not, as that
which S. Paul glanceth at in his second Epistle to the Thessal. of the cause of
the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist, are wholly lost and extinguished.
So unfaithful or negligent hath been this Keeper of Divine Verities;
whose eyes, like the Keepers of Israel (you say) have never slumbred
nor slept. Lastly, we deny not but a Judge and a Law might well stand
together, but we deny that there is any such Judge of Gods appointment.
Had he intended any such Judge, he would have named him, lest otherwise
(as now it is) our Judge of Controversies should be our greatest Controversie.
11. Ad §. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. In your second Paragraph, you sum up those
Arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be
Judge in Controversies. Wherein I profess unto you before hand, that you
will fight without an Adversary. For though Protestants, being warranted
by some of the Fathers, have called Scripture the Judge of Controversie;
and you, in saying here, That Scripture alone cannot be Judge, imply
that it may be called in some sense a Judge, though not alone: Yet, to
speak properly (as men should speak when they write of Controversies
in Religion) the Scripture is not a Judge of Controversies, but a Rule
only, and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by. Every man is to judge
for himself with the Judgement of Discretion, and to choose either his
Religion first, and then his Church, as we say: or, as you, his Church first,
and then his Religion. But, by the consent of both sides, every man is to
judge and choose: and the Rule whereby he is to guide his choice, if he be
a natural man, is Reason; if he be already a Christian, Scripture; which we
say is the Rule to judge Controversies by. Yet not all simply, but all the
Controversies of Christians, of those that are already agreed upon This
first Principle, that the Scripture is the Word of God. But that there is any

Man, or any Company of men appointed to be Judge for all men, that we
deny; and that I believe, you will never prove. The very truth is, we say
no more in this matter, than evidence of Truth hath made you confess in
plain terms in the beginning of this Chapter, viz. That Scripture is a perfect
Rule of Faith, for as much as a writing can be a Rule. So that all your
Reasons, whereby you labour to dethrone the Scripture from this Office of
Judging, we might let pass as impertinent to the Conclusion which we
maintain, and you have already granted; yet out of courtesie we will
consider them.
12. Your first is this; A Judge must be a person fit to end Controversies;
but the Scripture is not a person, nor fit to end Controversies, no more than the
Law would be without the Judges; therefore though it may be a Rule, it cannot
be a Judge. Which conclusion I have already granted. Only my request is,
that you will permit Scripture to have the properties of a Rule, that is, to
be fit to direct every one that will make the best use of it, to that end for
which it was ordained: And that is as much as we need desire. For, as if
I were to go a journey, and had a guide which could not err, I needed not
to know my way: so on the other side, if I know my way, of have a plain
rule to know it by, I shall need no guide. Grant therefore Scripture to be
such a Rule, and it will quickly take away all necessity of having an infallible
guide. But without a living Judge it will be no fitter (you say) to end
Controversies, than the Law alone to end suits. I answer, if the Law were
plain and perfect, and men honest and desirous to understand aright, and
obey it, he that says it were not fit to end Controversies, must either want
understanding himself, or think the world wants it. Now the Scripture, we
pretend, in things necessary is plain and perfect; and men, we say, are obliged
under pain of Damnation, to seek the true sense of it, and not to wrest
it to their preconceived Fancies. Such a law therefore to such men, cannot
but be very fit to end all Controversies necessary to be ended. For others
that are not so, they will end when the world ends, and that is time enough.