The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving…The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving…

For it is either a Positive or a Negative infallibility which they mean and ascribe to their Church. If a Positive, then 1. All the foresaid absurdities unavoidably follow; whether they say that they can infallibly teach us all things (and will not) or but some? But if it be a Negative infallibility which they maintain (viz. that the Church shall never teach any false doctrine; Or the Pope shall never deceive us by obtruding any error, though withal he may possibly teach us but part of the truth, yea the necessary truth, yea perhaps teach us none at all) I say, if this be their meaning, then every infant or bird or beast hath as glorious a privilege as the Pope of Rome: For every infant and brute is so infallible; that we are certain they will not deceive the Church by teaching any error.

For it is either a Positive or a Negative infallibility which they mean and ascribe to their Church. If a Positive, then 1. All the foresaid absurdities unavoidably follow; whether they say that they can infallibly teach us all things (and will not) or but some? But if it be a Negative infallibility which they maintain (viz. that the Church shall never teach any false doctrine; Or the Pope shall never deceive us by obtruding any error, though withall he may possibly teach us but part of the truth, yea the necessary truth, yea perhaps teach us none at all) I say, if this be their meaning, then every infant or bird or beast hath as glorious a priviledge as the Pope of Rome: For every infant and bruit is so infallible; that we are certain they will not deceive the Church by teaching any error.

Perhaps they'll say that the Pope is positively infallible as a sufficient Teacher of the Church, in all ⟨p. 264⟩things de fide at that time, or necessary to salvation; and negatively infallible in all the rest, which are not de fide or necessary: To which I answer: 1. Either such points are de fide and necessary before the Pope dedeclare them so, and he therefore declares them so because they are so: or else he declares them de fide and necessary before they are so, that by declaring them so, he may make them so. If the first, 1. then the Papists have lost their cause; for that's it which they deny, at least quoad nos, though not in se, as they use to distinguish. 2. And then its plain that no Pope hath been positively infallible in necessariis, or all points de fide: for no one hath declared all, nor are they yet all (say they) declared by them, but every Pope may still add more, and who knows when we shall have all. But if they take the later way, then 1. They suppose that Gods word how express soever doth not make a point to be de fide and necessary, till the Pope declare it so (at least quoad nos: and how it can be de fide and necessary, any other way then quoad nos, they should do well to declare: For that which is credendum, est ab aliquo credendum (that which is to be believed, must be believed by some body) and that which is necessary is necessary to some one.) So that the Gospel shall be no Gospel with them, nor the Law of God any Law, though we read it and hear it a thousand times, till the Pope tell us by parcels the meaning of its particular words and sentences. 2. They make the Popes acts to go before their objects, which is against the nature of actions: while they make him to declare a point to be de fide that it may become de fide. For to declare that it is so, supposeth that it is so, and not only that it will or shall be so de futuro. 3. And