Full and easy satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…Full and easie satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…

P. Among all your questionings answer me this question if you can. If that General Council decreed Transubstantiation, what could move them so to do, if it were not the faith of the Church before? Were they not all of the same mind the day before they did it? and so the day before that, and the day before that, &c. Or do you think that they were against Transubstantiation the night before, and awaked all of another mind the next morning? What could make all the Pastors of the Church think that this was the true faith, if they did not think it was the ancient faith? And what could make them think it the ancient faith, if it were not so? Did not they know what their Fathers held? And did not their Fathers know what their Fathers held? The same I say of the Council of Trent also.

P. Among all your questionings answer me this question if you can. If that General Council decreed Transubstantiation, what could move them so to do, if it were not the faith of the Church before? Were they not all of the same mind the day before they did it? and so the day before that, and the day before that, &c. Or do you think that they were against Transubstantiation the night before, and awaked all of another mind the next morning? What could make all the Pastors of the Church think that this was the true faith, if they did not think it was the antient faith? And what could make them think it the antient faith, if it were not so? Did not they know what their Fathers held? And did not their Fathers know what their Fathers held? The same I say of the Council of Trent also.

R. Thus men that must not believe the common sense of mankind, can believe the dreaming conjectures of their brains, and sit in a corner, and thence tell the world what can and what cannot be done by public assemblies, at many hundred years and miles distance. Who would not laugh at a Fryer, that in his Cell would tell by moral conjectures, all the thoughts and motions of an Army ⟨p. 137⟩or Navy, that never saw them, and contrary to the experience of those that were on the ground and interested in their Councils and actions. Observe how many false suppositions go to make up your cheats. 1. You suppose this a true General Council, which is a pack of factious Prelates subject to the Pope, and assembled at Rome in his own Palace, under the awe of his presence and power. And as if the small number after at Trent had spake the minds of all the Churches. 2. You suppose all the members of a Council to be of one mind: when as they determine by the Major Vote. And oft times the difference is not above two or three, and its possible one Voice may turn the scales: And perhaps one, or two, or ten may be absent one day, and present another, and so the Cry of [the Judgement of all the Bishops in the world] may signify no more, but that two or three of the other side staid a little too long at dinner that day, while the other party carried it by their absence. And I pray you where hath God promised, that the faith of an hundred and one shall not fail, when the faith of ninety nine of the same company may fail (supposing the Council to be two hundred): Or why are the one hundred and one the Bishops of all the world, and not the ninety nine? 3. Do you think we never read the History of the Council of Trent? and before them, of the Councils of Ariminum,