Roman Catholics UNCERTAIN Whether there be any True PRIESTS OR SACRAMENTS IN THE Church of Rome: Evinced by an Argument urged and maintained (upon their own Principles) against Mr EDWARD GOODALL of Prescot in Lancashire.  
By THOMAS MARSDEN, Vicar of Walton in the same County.  
The Treatise divided into Two Parts. The First being Explicative of Terms. The Second Argumentative.  
LONDON, Printed for Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop's-Head in St. Paul's Churchyard. MDCLXXXVIII.   

THE EPISTLE TO THE PROTESTANT READER.  
Courteous Reader,  
IF thou art skilled in good Authors, I freely make thee Judge of these Papers, and covet thy Admonition, if thou seest any thing Material amiss in them, desiring nothing more than that Truth may take place. I have nothing more to say to thee, if thou art what I suppose thee to be.  
But if thou art less seen in Books, I crave leave to give thee some Advice. Read over this small Treatise with a present Mind, and such Light may chance to beam forth from it upon thy Understanding, as may show thee the crazy Estate of the Roman Church, notwithstanding the proclamations many make of its welfare.  
If thou findest that not one Person of that Communion, measuring his State by their own Doctrine, can be certain whether he enjoys the Ordinary Means appointed by God for Man's Salvation, (which I pretend to prove) I would oblige thee to these few Things, 

1. Hearty to pity them, and pray that it may be better with them. Pray, I say, that they may see and reject their Errors, and retain neither more nor less for Faith, than That once delivered to the Saints.  
2. To praise God thou art in Communion with the Established Church of England, whose Faith rests unmoveable upon the Holy Scripture and Ancient Creeds, and whose Government (for the Substance of it) is truly Primitive and Apostolical.  
3. As thou hast sound, so to hold fast That which is Best. Let neither a fond Affection to Novelty, nor a groundless Admiration of Mis-called-Antiquity turn thee aside from the truly Old Paths. In Order to This, strive to work thy Soul to an high Esteem of Truth and Peace, the two Grand Legacies our dear Lord hath lest his Church: For These cannot be in safe Keeping, unless the Heart assist the Head, in Order to their safeguard. Cold Speculation secures not from the prevalency of Temptations. Men may part with Truth, not because they like it not at all, but because they hope by Exchanging it for Error, to get something to boot, they like better. All times and places have Experience of This.    
Now if thou expectest to be assisted with some previous Instructions, for thy more Useful Reading of what follows; Know, I need but give thee Little here, having all-along in my passage enlarged (some will say, to a fault) on several Heads, that I might acquaint thee with the whole Nature of the Subject, treated of. The Fourth Part of what I have written, might, I suppose, have sufficed to have let my Adversary know my Mind, so far as he hath obliged me to impart it. The Rest is employed in Unfolding Things for thy sake. And more I would have done for thee in this kind, had not the Multiplicity of my Affairs, which for many Years have divided my Endeavours into several Channels, allowed me only much interrupted parcels of time for this Occasion.  
Being jealous of being misunderstood, I shall explain a few things here, which otherwise might possibly chance to be a Stumbling-block in thy Way.  
1. I frequently call men Priests and Bishops, whilst I am questioning whether they be truly Such. And I say, They Baptise and Ordain, whilst I question the validity of those Acts. Which may seem to thee a sort of Contradiction.  
But know, all Authors speak in the like manner, who speak of the like Matters, I deal with. The meaning is but this, We call them Priests and Bishops, because the Matter and Form of Ordination hath been Outwardly applied to them, and they are therefore reputed such. In like sort, I. say, They Baptise, Consecrate, etc. When the Outward Sacramental Action is performed, and They are therefore reputed to do so.  
But since the Roman Church declares, That an inward invisible Act of the Minister's Will, called his Intention, is necessary to the perfecting Ordination and Baptism, etc. I therefore question How her reputed Priests or Bishops can be known to be true Priests, or Bishops: Or their reputed Baptism, true Baptisne, according to their Doctrine.  
To save a Circuit of Words, Men generally speak, as is aforesaid; and the Meaning of the Words is easily known by the other Words they are connected with, in the Discourse.  
2. Note, when at any time I call the Church of Rome The Church, it is where the Contexture of the Matter obligeth me to accommodate my Language to them, and not otherwise: for I am fully satisfied the Roman is out a Church, not the Church; viz. but a particular, not the universal Church.  
3. If at any time I say to this Effect,— Ordination and your other Sacraments, I do but occasionally suit my Words to theirs; as not at all approving their Number of Sacraments. God hath blest me with better eye sight, I praise his Name for it, than to agree with the Roman Church in any One point, wherein She disagrees with the Church of England.  
I add, Thou art not in a Discourse of this Nature to expect a Style dressed with brisk Metaphors, or pretty little Turns of Wit, nor yet with much variety of Words. To speak openly and with sure dependence, is the Province of a Disputant, and all that a Wise man looks for from him.  
This is all I had a mind to tell thee, and so I bid thee hearty Farewell.   


The General CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART.  SECTION I. 
MAtter of Fact related. 2  SECTION II. 
Mr. G. Unseasonably calls for Explication of Terms. His request is granted. The Order of proceeding in it set forth. 7  SECTION III. 
What Councils have dealt with the Intention. The Roman Church requires it as necessary to a Sacrament. 10  SECTION IU. 
The Intention of doing the Exterior Action is not required, but presupposed. 16  SECTION V 
The Intention defined. That of the End required. 22  SECTION VI 
The End particularly considered is not required; but generally. The Virtual Intention is required, and held sufficient. 32  SECTION VII. 
R. Catholics not certain of their Priesthood taken in general by any simple or absolute Certainty. Nor certain of it taken in special by any simple, or so much as a Moral Certainty. 35  SECTION VIII. 
The several Explications before given, summed up. And the Question resolved into its parts. 41   

The General CONTENTS of the SECOND PART.  SECTION I. 
THe General Order of proceeding. The first part of Mr. G's Letter set down and examined. 43  SECTION II. 
Mr. Goodall sets forth the Argument, and his Answer to it, as follows. 50  SECTION III. 
A more general view of the mistakes of Mr. G's. Answer. 54  SECTION IU. 
The Intention of the Bishop in Ordination cannot be made appear either by Reason or Authority. 60  SECTION V 
The Intention is not knowable by Authority, whether Divine or Humane. 71  SECTION VI 
Roman Catholics have but a bare Opinion to secure them of the point. 78  SECTION VII. 
The Ordaining Bishops not certain whether there be true Priests in the Roman Church. 88  SECTION VIII. 
Consequences drawn from the Uncertainty of the Roman Priesthood: and the feeble condition of that Church, issuing from thence, shown. 97  SECTION IX. 
The Banks Mr. G. hath cast up to secure the Roman Priesthood, taken in general, cast down. 109  SECTION X. 
Mr. G's Argument, urged by way of Retort, examined and enervated. 127    

IMPRIMATUR Liber cui Titulus, Roman Catholics uncertain whether there be any true Priests, etc.  
Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest. April 20. 1688.   

THE UNCERTAINTY Of any True Priests or Sacraments In the ROMAN CHURCH: Proved against Mr. EDWARD GOODALL.  
The First Part, Being chief Explicative of Terms.  
SIR,  
WERE You and I called to represent all the accidental Discourse that passed between us, when I was last at Your House, I fear we should vary in our Reports: for when you undertook within an hour after to tell part of it at the Inn, you found yourself to be contradicted by those that heard us. And indeed, we penetrated so little into the Merits of any Point we spoke of, (but how that happened our Auditors can best say) that it would not be worth the while either for us to tell, or others to hear, the unready fruitless story of it.  
However, to make way to our present business, I think fit to entertain the Readers (for as your Papers have already, so mine may meet with more eyes than yours and mine) with a little of what passed before the close of our Altercations. Which being done, I shall proceed to the work which you have since scored out for me. And for better Order-sake, and that you may with more ease let me know the Faults you find with me, I shall divide my Paper into several Sections and and Paragraphs.  

SECT. I. Matter of Fact related.  
§. 1. WHEN you alleged that our Orders in the Church of England were invalid, in the judgement of Roman Catholics, (a thing I could not wonder at, having cause to believe You had renounced them) I strait justified them by those of the Church of Rome, unto which our first Reformed Bishops were admitted. You said, They had indeed been good, had our Bishops kept to the old Ordinal; but that They forsook it, and only gave power to dispense the Word and Sacraments, which any Deacon might do: and that afterwards, perceiving the Nullity that happened by it, They again altered the Form, and gave power to do the Office of a Priest. Thus you.  
§. 2. TO this I returned, That Words and Phrases might be changed, and yet their matter remain the same: and that so it was in this case. You took the word dispense, I told you, in too narrow and cramped a sense, making it denote only distribution, with respect to the Eucharist; whereas Our Church made it there signify Consecration also. I added, Scripture-Language would secure us in this: for S. Paul himself sets forth the entire Office of the Gospel-Ministry by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Dispensation of the Gospel; and all Gospel-Ministers (those of the highest rank not excepted) by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Dispenser's of the Mysteries of God. Which you could not gain say.  
And hence I concluded, that the Alteration spoken of, was Verbal only, and not Material.  
§. 3. This ended, to occasion you to take a view of some Fetters which the Roman Church had put upon her own claims, I denied that She could be certain, according to her own principles, that she hath any true Priesthood. I thought, Sir, some of your Councils had put the stamp of Faith upon a Doctrine which would in its just consequences so far blot the Evidences of your Priesthood, (and of all other your things that depend upon it) as to make them not certainly Legible, and therefore I used those words— according to your own principles.  
And finding you not forward to prevent me by proving the Affirmative, I gained your leave to make good the Negative, which I attempted to do by the following Argument.  
§. 4. All Churches that make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition, that no man living knows whether it be fulfilled, must be uncertain, whether they have any true Priesthood.  
But the Roman Church makes Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition, that no man living knows whether it be fulfilled: Ergo,  
The Roman Church must be uncertain whether she hath any true Priesthood.  
§. 5. When I complained of your repeating my Syllogism imperfectly, you alleged it was a long one, and therefore desired me to write it down for the help of your memory. To gratify you, I writ the whole as it stands, saving, that I only hinted the predicate of the Minor, as sufficient for your help.  
After perusal of it you denied the Minor, which I proved thus,  
§. 6. The Intention of the Bishop is a Condition, which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no.  
But the Church of Rome requires the Intention of the Bishop to Ordination: Ergo,  
The Church of Rome requires a Condition to Ordination, which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no.  
§. 7. Now, in compliance with the words of the former Syllogism (not adverted to, through haste, when I formed the Second) I shall present the Matter of this latter thus,  
The Intention of the Bishop is a Condition, that no man living knows whether it be fulfilled.  
But the Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon the Intention of the Bishop: Ergo,  
The Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon a Condition that no man living knows whether it be fulfilled.  
I have not, Sir, made this digression for your sake, who did not before by word, nor since by writing, find the least fault with my barely verbal Alteration: I did it only out of a respect to Decorum. But I must go on with it a little for the sake of the less discerning Reader.  
The minor Propositions, wherein the variation lies, I will place together, for the more easy comparison of them.  
The Church of Rome requires the Intention of the Bishop to Ordination.  
The Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon the Intention of the Bishop.  
Upon the first view of them thus placed, it appears that they are equivalent Propositions, giving the very same sense; and so are both alike true, or both alike false. For by the word requires, I mean, requires as necessary. This I have added, lest any should be apt to conclude, They see another person because they see another dress.  
But to return from this unnecessary Digression.  
You denied the Major of my second Syllogism, alleging that it was not universally true, forasmuch as the Ordaining Bishops knew whether they intended to Ordain or no.  
§. 8. To this I replied, by Explicating what I meant by these words, the Intention of the Bishop, viz. the Intention of such as were truly and indeed Bishops. Upon which I added, That your Bishops know not whether they exert that Intention which your Church requires to Ordination, for want of certainty that those duly Intended who Ordained them, and consequently that themselves are true Bishops. For it is not the Intention of a man considered otherwise than as a true Bishop, that will serve to the purpose of Ordination. Nor can any Bishop be surer that his Intention (together with the due application of Matter and Form) is effectual to Ordination, than he is, that his, who undertook to Ordain him, was so. But how he should be certain of that, I am to learn.  
§. 9 The Sum than is, Nothing short of all this I have expressed, will reach home to the purposes of your Church; and therefore your Councils have fallen short of their main end, if in handling this matter they require not all this in their Definitions; or at least presuppose not that part of it as necessary, which they do not formally require. And sure I am, That none is more sure that he Intends as a Bishop, than he is sure, That he is a Bishop: Which assurance he may begin to seek when he pleases, but I am confident he will never find it, till he hath found a Casement in his Ordainer's breast, through which he may view his very heart.  
The Major then (for aught I see) remains true in the most extended signification of the words, no man living (no, not the Ordaining Bishops themselves) knowing that the Condition of the requisite, effectual Intention of any Bishop is fulfilled in Ordination.  
Although, Sir, I spoke not all these words to you, yet you know I expressed the full matter of them.  
§. 10. But because you was not satisfied with this Notion, (but why you should not, let others judge) I limited the Signification of those words [no man living] by contradistinguishing all men to the Ordaining Bishops. And then the sense stood thus, No man living, except the Ordaining Bishops, know whether the required Intention be present in Roman Catholic Ordinations. Which explication of the words you accepted.  
I was well content, I confess, to take up with this for that time, as thinking with myself, That the Romanists might well forbear their mighty claims, if it could be made appear (and this I never doubted) That no Priest, nor Deacon, nor Sub-deacon, nor any of the lesser Orders, nor any one Lay-person amongst them can be certain, That there is any true Priesthood in that Church, nor any true Sacraments given or received in it.  
§. 11. I would with your patience, add one thing more. Immediately after. I had received my Paper from you, you demanded to have it in keeping: and when I told you there was no reason you should have my Script in exchange for your vanished breath, you acted a sort of triumph, telling me I durst not give it, as being conscious to myself of its infirmities. You too often dared me to give it you, with repeated promises you would answer it. At last, wearied with importunities, I gave it, and you engaged to answer it, under your hand.  
I have not reported this out of any design to blame your zeal, but to let others know you may thank your self for it, if I chance to toil you a little more than you have a mind of.  
§. 12. Sir, I hope your memory when a little rubbed up, will serve to assure you, That what I have now related as matter of Fact, is substantially true. However I am ready to give you a Certificate of any part of it, which you shall please to question, Signed by the hands of the then present Gentlemen.   

SECT. II. Mr. G. unseasonably calls for Explication of Terms. His request is granted. The Order of proceeding in it set forth.  
§. 1. NOW I come to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter, dated London September 29. in Answer to my Paper delivered to you about the Sixth of August. It is, I hope, the issue of mature advice and deliberation, and therefore may save me the trouble of expecting from you any thing of greater moment on this subject. 'Tis some satisfaction to know the uttermost strength of an enemy. You pronounce it a full Answer to my Argument; and full admits not of increase. You also insinuate it probable that I may acquiesce in it, which indeed I ought to do if it be a full Answer; Truth being the thing you and I are to run in quest of, and to rest in, being found. But if I chance not to see your Answer such, (as in truth, I cannot, for want of eyesight, or for want of Object) and will therefore pursue the point further, you invite me to state the Case distinctly and clearly. Your words are these,  
§. 2. If you have any thing more to Offer against us, be pleased to state the point distinctly and clearly, by telling us what sort of Intention you think is required in these Councils, [viz. of Florence and Trent] as a Principle of our Church, when you say, That the Intention of the Bishop is a Condition which no man living, viz. contradistinguished from the Ordaining Minister, knows whether it be fulfilled, or no. Whether you think an Habitual, Actual or Virtual Intention be there declared; and whether such as is conversant about the Act which is exercised, or about the End; and whether this End be Proximate or Vltimate. As also what certainty you speak of in your Propositions, whether it be Moral, Metaphysical or Mathematical. That so I may return you a distinct answer.  
§. 3. Sir, Your request that I would explicate the Terms in my Propositions, is reasonable; but it had been more reasonable you should have made it sooner, if you really doubted of my meaning in them. First, to write a deliberate Answer from a seven week's consideration of the Terms I used, and after that to ask the meaning of them, is wonderful inartificial: such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as a person of your standing in an University is seldom guilty of.  
While you look upon my Words as Equivocal, you can fasten no determinate sense on them, and then except you had run through all the various significations of them, and showed that none of them would be serviceable to me against your Church, you have answered but at a venture, and fought hoodwinked.  
Had you proceeded after this manner: Sir, If you mean, That the Intention is required to be conversant only about the Sacramental Act, none in his wits can miss it; and so no uncertainty ariseth thence: if about the end, you mistake our doctrine; or, we are sure the Ministers of the Sacraments, always carry their Intention so far. If you mean an actual Intention is required, you misunderstand our Church; if an habitual or virtual, this is indeed required, but then the Ministers can never fail of Intending so, etc.  
Had you done this, you had not needed now to crave of me the Explication of the Terms, as having yourself met with them in all their shapes, and rendered them unuseful to my interest. But not having done this (as will appear beneath) you have run the risk of making an impertinent answer, whatsoever it may prove to be, at last.  
Not to speak ad idem, is to speak to no purpose, and you know not you have spoke ad idem, till you know what I mean.  
§. 4. Had you asked me at Prescot what I meant by them, I must have told you, or become the object of your scorn: for he that cannot explain the Words he hath spoken by way of Argument against another, will be thought to want common Wit, or Language; and he that will not explain them to a fair inquirer will be suspected to have spoken no good sense. But you were not then doubtful of the Terms, as appeared by your bare denying a Proposition, without more ado.  
§ 5. Or, had you, by the Post, called me shortly after, to this performance, I must for the same reasons have been your Obedient Servant. But not to ask this till your Answer was given, is a very great rarity.  
§. 6. However, though it come unseasonably for yourself, your request is just, and I will set myself to fulfil it. And I shall the more largely explicate the Terms you mention, (with some other things, if I find, as I go on, that occasion requires it) for the ampler satisfaction of the Reader; for saving myself all future trouble in this kind; and for bringing the matter in Controversy to a more evident period.  
In Order to this work, I shall require that two things be granted me by the Romanists.  
§. 7. 1. That when your Councils speak of the Intention of the Ministers of the Sacraments, they mean something by their Words; and also express their Sense in such sort that it may be understood. To deny me this would be to blast the reputation of your Oracles.  
§ 8. 2. That the Romanists, (at least) whose Faith is guided by, or rested upon such Councils, are, and have been able to declare the true Sense of their Decrees and Definitions. This follows from the other: for if the Councils writ intelligibly (which I take for granted) the Romanists have concern enough to inquire into, and skill enough to find out their Sense; and therefore shall be concluded to have done so.  
This being premised, I shall explicate the Terms (so far as is needful) from Roman-Catholick Authors. What they mean by them, I must mean by them; otherwise our Controversy can be nothing else but a strife about words.  
§. 9 To do this more Orderly, I shall show, (1.) What your Councils say of the Intention: (2.) In what manner of quality, or under what Notion they require it, with relation to the Sacraments: whereof they make Orders one. (3.) About what it is conversant there. (4.) What sort of Intention is required. (5.) What certainty I speak of, when I deny that the Roman Church is certain of her having any true Priesthood. This done, I shall attempt to judge of the strength or weakness of your Answer, according to the state of the Question.   

SECT. III. What Councils have dealt with the Intention. The Roman Church requires it as necessary to a Sacrament.  
§. 1. FIrst, Two of your Councils only have dealt in this Matter. What they were, and what they have said of it, I come now to show.  
Pope Eugenius' Decree propounded by way of Instruction to the Armenians, was read and approved in the Florentine Council, and thereby made a Synodical Decree, in the year 1439. Wherein, after the Number and Names of the Sacraments are recited and fixed, and the Ends or Uses they serve to, specified: We read this,  
Haec omnia tribus perficiuntur, viz. rebus tanquam Materia, verbis tanquam Forma, Persona Ministri conferentis Sacramentum cum intentione faciendi quod facit Ecclesia. Quorum si aliquod desit, non perficitur Sacramentum. i e.  
All these [Sacraments] are perfected by three things, Viz. Things as the Matter; Words as the Form; and the Person of the Minister conferring the Sacrament, with an Intention of doing what the Church doth: if any of which be wanting the Sacrament is not perfected.  
§. 2. The Council of Trent in the year 1547. the 7th. Session, 11th. Canon (De Sacram. in genere) saith thus, Si quis dixerit, in Ministris dum Sacramenta conficiunt & conferunt, non requiri intentionem saltem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia, anathema sit. i e.  
If any one shall say, That there is not required in the Ministers, whilst they make and confer the Sacraments, an Intention at least of doing what the Church doth, let him be accursed.  
Thus have we seen what these two Councils have said of the Point.  
§. 3. Secondly, I am to show in what Manner, or under what Notion they require the Intention. And here I doubt not to affirm, That they require it as Necessary to the very Being of the Sacraments; insomuch that though all the Externals, according to Christ's Institution be exactly performed, yet there is a Nullity in them, if the Intention be a wanting. The Council of Florence speaks clearly enough to this purpose, making the Word, Perfected, equally respect Matter, Form and Intention: And consequently a Sacrament may as well be perfected without Matter, or Form, as without the Intention: That is, Not at all. This the dullest eye may find by a review of the Citation.  
§. 4. I confess, the Trent-Council only says, The Intention is required, not adding How far, or in What manner, it is so: But that it means, required as necessary to the Being of the Sacraments, I prove by these Arguments:  
§. 5. (1.) It will be granted me, that the two Councils determining or declaring the very same Article, must by their Words mean the very same thing. And Nature teaches me to make the more plain Unfolded Words of the former a Commentary upon the more general enfolded Words of this. And then there can be no Orders or other Sacraments, where there is not the required Intention.  
§. 6. (2.) I prove it from the Style of the Trent-Council, which makes the Word, [requiri] required, wherever it is mentioned in her Canons, to signify required as of necessity to the thing it is applied to. For instance, in the 14th. Session, 9th. Canon. De Poen. Sacram. we read thus,— If any one shall say, That the Confession of the Penitent [non requiri] is not required in Order to the Priest's Absolving him, let him be accursed.  
Again, in the 4th. Canon, thus, If any one shall deny that Contrition, Confession, and Satisfaction [requiri] are required in the Penitent, as the matter of the Sacrament of Penance, etc. let him be accursed. And so the Word is used elsewhere. And then the Sense runs thus, As there can be no Absolution without Confession, so there can be no Sacrament without the Intention.  
§. 7. (3.) I prove this from the Rubrics of the Mass-Book of Pope Pius the V corrected and set forth by the Decree of this very Council, De Defectibus circa Missam occurrentibus, Num. 1. Where we read, Quicquid horum deficit, scil. Materia debita, Forma cum Intention, & Ordo Sacerdotalis in Conficiente, non conficitur Sacramentum. i e.  
Where any of these are wanting, viz. Due Matter, Form with the Intention, or Priestly Order in the Consecrator, the Sacrament is not made up.  
Note here. Although the Eucharist only be spoken of in this Citation, yet by Parity of Ground, Orders, and the rest are equally concerned, as to the Intention. Thus than it hath appeared, That the Council of Trent, as well as that of Florence, makes the Minister's Intention necessary to the Being of all the Sacraments.  
§. 8. However, lest it should be suspected, that I have taken a false Survey of the Matter, I shall go on to justify it from Roman Authors, so far as can fairly be required to our present purpose.  
§. 9 Of these some assert the Thing expressly, and others by most certain and unavoidable implication.  
§. 10. But before I produce them, I shall desire the Reader to remember, in Order to the better understanding of what follows, That if some of the Authors I shall cite, declare the Intention of the Minister to be Necessary, or Essential, or Substantial, to this or that particular Sacrament (as Baptism, or the Eucharist, etc.) it is as much as if it had been affirmed concerning all the rest of them; it being by virtue of its generical ingrediency, that it belongs to any or all the Species. If it be necessary to Baptism as a Sacrament, it must be equally so to all the other Sacraments.  
§. 11. Of those that assert the Point directly, Thomas Aquinas shall speak first. 
* Sacramenta requirunt Intentionem Ministri par. 3. qu. 64. Art 8.   
The Sacraments (saith he) require the Intention of the Minister. And Cajetan upon him thus, 
| Intentio Ministri exigitur ad perfectionem Sacramenti.  The Minister's Intention is required to the Perfection of the Sacrament.  
According to this Author it appears, That the Intention is not called for only as a thing congruous in the Minister, or such as that he cannot but sin, if he confer the Sacraments without it: But it is required to the perfecting or making up the Sacrament itself. The very Nature of the Sacraments requires it, as well as the Church does.  
§. 12. The Summa Sylvestrina affirms, 
* Par. 2. Verb. Sacram.  That there are three things [de Substantia—] of the Substance of a Sacrament, viz. Due Matter, Due Form, and the Intention of the Minister coupling together the Matter and Form.  
§. 13. Gabriel Biel is of the same judgement, Who saith, 
| Li. 4. Dist. 13. q. 1.  That to constitute a fit Minister of the Eucharist [de necessitate requiritur—] there is necessarily required the Power of Order, the Faculty of Speech, and Integrity of Intention.  
§. 14. Johannes. de Burgo speaks to the same purpose, 
* Pupil. Oc. ca 2. de Baptis.  To the Integrity of Baptism (saith he) three things are required, viz. Matter, Form of Words [& Intentio Baptizantis] and the Intention of the Minister.  
§. 15. Dom. à Soto speaks on the forecited place of Aquinas thus, 
| Conclusio praesens non solum intelligitur quantum ad decentem Sacramenti ornatum. imo Intentio de ejus existit essentia, quemadmodum in Concilio Florentino declaratum est. in 4. Senten. Dist. 1. q. 5. Art 6.  The present Conclusion [of the Intention] is not only understood of the Decent Ornament of the Sacrament, but the Intention is of its Essence, as was declared in the Council of Florence.  
§. 16. Bellarmine may serve me the labour of bringing in more Testimonies for this Point, Who declares it to be the judgement of Catholics in general, adding withal that the Councils of Florence and Trent teach it. 
* Sententia Catholicorum est, requiri Intentionem, etc. De Sacram in genere. li. 1. cap. 27.   
§. 17. When I spoke of producing some Authors that attest this Thing (not so expressly, but) by most certain implication, I meant it of such as bring the Intention into the definition of a Sacrament. Now a definition being nothing else but an Explication of the Nature or Essence of a thing, their putting the Intention there infers that they held it necessary to the Being of the Sacrament.  
§. 18. Jo. de Burgo tells us, in the forenamed place, 
* Est al lutio corporis exterior in aquâ, cum Intentione debita, facta sub formâ Verborum praescriptâ.  That the common definition the School Divines give of Baptism [est talis] is too this effect;  
Baptism is the external washing of the Body with water with due Intention, made under a prescribed form of Words.  
I could in a good measure verify this Author's words by setting down several definitions of the like sort, out of Summa Sylvest. Gabriel, Alstentaig and others; which were founded before them by Guil. Parisiensis, Aquinas, Alensis, Scotus, Occam, etc. But I have no mind to burden my Paper with needless Ink, on this account.  
§. 19 I shall trouble the Reader but with one definition more, which the same Author gives of Penance, 
| 〈…〉 est absolutio hominis poenitentis facta certis verbis cum debita Intention, prolatis à Sacordote, de Sacram Poen. in. gener. cap. 1.  The Sacrament of penance is the Absolution of a Penitent man, made with certain words pronounced by the Priest, with due Intention.  
Now by the same reason that Baptism and Penance may be defined by the Intention; Order and the other Sacraments may be so.  
Thus have I besides setting the two Councils in full view, given a taste of Roman Authors, that lived some of them, sometime before either of them, some between them, some at and after the time of the latter; who agreeably declare the Minister's Intention to be so necessary to the Sacraments, that there are none where that is absent. Which was the thing I undertook to show.  
I have omitted to write several Citations at length in the Author's words, because to do it would clog my Paper, and I am under no fears that disguising their Sense will be charged upon me.  
'Tis a fault I confess, to overdo a thing, and I fear I am guilty of it, at present. But know, Sir, the greatest part of this Section is not writ for your sake, who, I acknowledge, did not call for it; but for theirs, whether of your or our Communion, that are not satisfied, That any such Doctrine is established as matter of Faith in the Roman Church. I know there are such of both sorts.   

SECT. iv The Intention of doing the Exterior Action is not required, but presupposed.  
I Am now to show what the Intention, which the Roman Church requires, is to be conversant about, in the Sacraments.  
You, Sir, ask me whether it be such as is conversant about the Act to be exercised, or about the End. Now that the less learned Reader may understand the Nature of your Question, and be thereby better enabled to judge how I proceed, I shall explain it to him from the Pen of Gabriel Biel, one of your own renowned Doctors. §. 1. His words are these, 
* Intentio potest dupliciter serri in aliquid, velut in Objectum; vel ut in terminum aut finem. Sic Intentio Baptizantis potest ferri in actum baptizandi sicut in Objectum, & sic nibil aliud est quam velle actum istum porficere●' Potest etiam ferri in aliquid ut in finem, scil in illud propter quod v●lt Baptizare; ut velle fieri illud propter quod Baptismus est institutus. l. 4. dist. 6 q. 1.  The Intention may two manner of ways be carried to some thing, either as to its Object, or to its Term or End. So the Intention of the Baptizer may be carried to the Act of Baptism is to its Object, and so it is nothing else than to will the performance of that Act. It may be also carried to something as its End, viz. to That for which he wills to Baptise; as to will that to be done, for which Baptism was instituted.  
It is but making the case of Ordination parallel with the instance given of Baptism, and all will be clear. If a Bishop purpose, will, or intent barely to pronounce the words your Church uses in Ordaining Priests, viz.— Receive thou power to offer Sacrifice in the Church for the quick and dead, in the name of the Father, etc. (which you make the form of that Sacrament) and to deliver to them the Paten with Bread, and the Chalice with Wine, (which you make the matter of it) without going any farther: in this case the Intention is said to be conversant about the Act. But if he also will or intent the Effect or End, to which the Sacramental Act is instituted as subservient, he is said to intent the Effect or End.  
§. 2. The First, for distinction sake, is by good Authors called the Exterior [outward] Intention, the latter, the interior [inward] or Mental Intention. Which Terms I shall use in what follows, for saving a Circuit of Words. And for the same end I will call the Application of Matter and Form the Sacramental Act, or Action.  
Having said this in a previous way, I come now to Answer your Question, Whether your Councils require such an Intention as is conversant about the Act, or End of the Sacraments.  
§. 3. And I boldly affirm, 1. That it is not the First only (if at all) which they require. 2. But that it is the latter.  
And I hold myself concerned to make ample and firm proof hereof, in regard all the inferences I am to make against you in this dispute, will especially lie upon these two grounds.  
1. For the First, That it is not the Exterior Intention your Councils require by way of Decree or Definition, I shall endeavour to prove by these Arguments,  
§. 4. (1.) This point is not proper matter for Councils to deal with. It is Matter of divine Faith, Worship, or Government that They (acting within their sphere) are to debate upon, and Synodically to determine: and not Matter of common natural Knowledge, whereof the Heathen Philosophers were as competent Judges as they. To an assent to Propositions of this (latter) kind, our judgements are to be wrought by the power and force of Reason: nor can our ignorance of them be conquered by any other weapons. This knowledge is not to be beaten into men's heads by bare Ecclesiastic affirmations and anathemas. Nor did ever wise men take this course to do it. Well, The necessary presence of the Intention, or Will, to all external Actions that are humane and free, is a point of mere natural Knowledge; it being in plain speech nothing else but this, That a man willingly doth (acting humanely) the external actions he doth. Which [Velle] motion of the Will cannot be wanting to such Actions, except in the case of Drunkenness or Frenzy, or something else, which in like manner robs the Will of her Guide. Yea, it is such a common Operation of the Will, we now speak of, as no more concerns those of the Sacraments than all other Actions in the World, that are humane and voluntary, whatever the Object, or End of them be. Thus when a man promiseth a thing which at that time he resolves never to perform, he yet intends to make that promise. When he threatens another only in terrorem, without purposing ever to execute that threat, he than intends to make that threat. And the Intention is so altogether presupposed to outward Actions, that in common use of Speech we omit [say nothing of] it, in commanding, or forbidding, or reciting exterior Acts, etc. We say, Read me a Chapter; make ready my Dinner, etc. without adding any thing more. For though these Actions now mentioned, are imperate Acts of the Will; that is, though the Will commands the inferior powers to do them, as the hands to act, and the Tongue to speak, etc. yet the Act of the Will [viz. the Intention,] is not so much as named when we speak of such Actions: and to do it would be superfluous, inasmuch as it is necessarily supposed to attend them. All men take it for granted that men intended to do, what they see them do in good Order. And this assurance is grounded on the mere Natural knowledge of the Nature of humane Acts, which are therefore called Voluntary, because of the Will's Efficiency in them; or because of their necessary dependence upon and connexion with the Elicite Acts of the Will.  
§. 5. And in particular; for this Reason, Learned Men discoursing about our very Question, make the Action of the Sacraments express this intention, without otherwise naming it; except upon some special occasion. Dom. Soto speaks plainly with a respect to this Point (in 4. Sent. Dist. 1. q. 5. art. 8.) Actus enim exterior & volitio interior pro eodem reputantur. i e.  
The exterior Act and the interior Volition [Act of the Will] are reputed for the same.  
His meaning can be no other than this, The Outward Act is the Object of the Inward Act of the Will, and together with it doth compound or constitute one humane Action; and so may fitly denote the whole. Which is a very obvious Truth to all, whose thoughts have been any whit thinned and improved by Observation.  
§. 6. Thus have I made it appear, That the Necessity of the Exterior Intention to all humane Acts (of which number are the Sacramental) falls under the Cognisance of Natural Reason: And indeed it is such Doctrine as hath been taught passing well in the Heathen Schools. Wherefore I conclude that your General Councils at Florence and Trent (which you must say known and were mindful of their proper Province) did not gad so far out of their Way, as to determine and decree mere unrevealed Natural Points, such as this we have in hand.  
§. 7. To prevent mistakes. I wots well there are several Points of Natural Knowledge revealed in Scripture, which are therefore (by accident) become also Points of Faith: And that if these were denied by any Body of Christian People, Councils might congruously declare them. But the Exterior Intention is none of these; and my Argument respects only such as this.  
§. 8. I add, if your Councils might draw within their Sphere mere Points of Natural Knowledge, like this I have insisted on; Aristotle's Books might chance to be adopted into our Christian Creed; which would look but oddly. Can such work rightly be done, it would be worth a Council's while to make a Complete Course of Infallible Philosophy, to save much pains and endless wrangling in your Schools. For if all such things were once defined, a Roman Catholic could no longer question them.  
§. 9 But this only upon Supposition your Councils have defined the Intention to be necessary to humane Acts. I, for my part, clear them from any such guilt. But if you do, Sir, What means your Question?  
§. 10. It appears also, That there is such an evident dependence of the Sacramental, and all other humane Acts upon the Will or Intention, that no Man of Sense ever did or can question it: And therefore besides that the work were improper for a Synod of Divines, it were altogether needless and fruitless to determine it: it were to act without a Motive, in my Opinion. Those that would do This, might at the next step, be expected to decree it Necessary, That all Lectors open their eyelids when they read a Chapter; and that all Preachers open their Mouths when they exhort the People.  
Now, Sir, you must either join with me in loading your Councils with these absurdities, or in concluding; That it is not the Exterior Intention which is the Matter of their Decree and Canon.  
§. 11. But whatever you do, Bellarmine will befriend all I have said on this Head. (De Sacram. in gen. l. 1. cap. 27.) Neque tamen volumus à Concilio definitum id quod vult Catharinus, & Chemnitius vellet, nimirum ut solum intendat Minister facere actum exteriorem, quem Ecclesia facit: id enim non erat opus definire, cum à Nemine unquam negatum fuisset, nec posset neg ari. i e.  
We mean not that That is defined by the Council, which Catharinus means, and which Chemnitius would have; namely, that the Minister should only intent to do that Exterior Act which the Church doth: For there was No Need of defining That, in regard it hath never been denied by any body, nor could be denied.  
The Cardinal here declares, 1. That the Council [of Trent] did not define the Intention we now speak of. 2. That they had no Motive to do it, forasmuch as none ever did or could deny it. Whose Testimony shall shut up this Particular.  
§. 12. (2.) I argue from the Nature of the Controversy between Papist and Protestant about the Intention: Which cannot respect it in the present Sense of the Word, there being no Protestant, that I ever read or heard of, who denies its necessity to the Act. None of us ever asserted that any Madman (as such) was fit to manage any Civil Concern, much less Spiritual. In this case then, we could hardly contend, because we concur in the Thing. Or at least, it would follow, That the Learned men of both Parties quarrel not only about Trifles, but about just Nothing. Which thing, methinks, a Romanist should be unwilling to impute (however he judge of us) to the wisest Men of his own Communion. Hence than I conclude, That it is a further Intention than this of the Act, which the Roman Church requires: And this breeds the Quarrel.  
§. 13. After all this: Were it supposed that your Councils had stooped to that impertinent and needless work of defining the Necessity of the Exterior Intention; You are not a-whit the safer, except they had only done that. Had they done that, and stopped there, we could not possibly have inferred from thence, That you were therefore uncertain of the Truth of your Sacraments. But if they have required the Intention of the End, which lies not open to humane perception, you must still be liable to my charge. And that it is such a One which they require, I am to show, in the next place.   

SECT. V The Intention defined. That of the End required.  
HAving already showed, that the Intention of the Act is not that which is established in your Councils, I apply myself to evince what it was, that is: I affirmed it was the Intention of the End or Effect of the Sacraments. And I shall prove this, according to my Method, from the Learned Writers of the Roman Church: Some of which assert the Thing expressly; Others obliquely, by putting or stating Cases, from which a very mean Understanding cannot but infer the truth of what I have affirmed. But before I produce them, I think fit to premise these things,  
1. What Intention properly so called, is? According to the general consent of School men, I may safely define it thus,  
§. 1. It is an Act or Motion of the Will, tending to some End, by or through some Mean or Means.  
To this very purpose speaks Aquinas, Gerson, Gabriel, Sylvester, and Others. The words of some of them, I shall set down, but need not English them, the sense of them amounting to no more than the Definition now given.  
Motus voluntatis qui fertur in finem, secundum quod acquiritur per ea quaesunt ad finem, vocatur Intentio, saith Aquinas, (1ª 1ae q. 12. art. 4.) Est actus voluntatis in aliquem finem tendentis per aliquid vel aliqua ad illum finem ordinata, saith Altenstaig from Gerson (verb. Inten.) Intentio est motus voluntatis tendentis in finem per aliquod medium, saith Sylvest. (verb. Inten.) Intentio propriè accepta est volitio finis assequendi per media, saith Gabriel Biel (Repert. l. 2. dist. 38.)  
§. 2. I note from hence, That the mere Intention of the Act, which took up our last Section, is not Intention, properly so called; inasmuch as it came short of the End, to which the Act was to serve as a Mean. I note also that the Minister then only properly intends whiles he celebrates the Sacraments, when he wills the End of them (considered generally or specially; some way or other) as attainable by the Use of the instituted Actions.  
§. 3. 2. I premise, That if my Authors prove the Intention of the End to be required, they also make out, That the Intention of the Act only is not required. Your question, Sir, is disjunctive, Whether— of the Act or the End. If I prove the latter, I remove the former.  
3. I repeat my desire to have it kept in memory, That the Sacraments faring all alike with a respect to the Intention, if my Authors shall, under that Relation, speak of any of them, they as truly do it of all the rest. Now to my Authority.  
§. 4. I begin with Gabriel Biel, the clearness of whose words leaves no room for cavil. 
* Ad veritatem Baptismi requiritur Intentio Ministri, non tantum respectu Actus Baptizandi ut Objecti, sed etiam respectu ejus ut Finis & Termini. l 4. dist. 6. q. 1.   
To the truth of Baptism the Intention of the Minister is required, not only in respect of the Act of Baptising as its Object [viz. as that which the Intention is only carried out to, stops at, or is terminated by,] but also in respect of its effect, as its End and Term.  
This Author divides this conclusion into parts, and presents Arguments for the proof of them. But it would be superfluous to transcribe the whole. He saith, the Intention to do the Act is necessary; but adds [non sufficit] that it is not sufficient. And the Reason he gives amounts to this, That though the Act of Baptism be done with Intention, yet in several cases it may become fruitless and void [there may be no Baptism notwithstanding that Act] for want of another Intention, viz. that which respects the End. Again, our Author speaks clearly, 
* Non sufficit Intentio exercendi Baptismum. ut est talis Actus in Natura, sed ut est signum ad certum finem institutum.  It sufficeth not that the Minister intends to Baptise, as that is a Natural Act; but as it is a Sign instituted to a certain End.  
§. 5. Here note, That none can use a Sign, as such, but he must have a respect to the thing signified, to which the Sign, as such, hath an essential Relation, and cannot be considered, as a Sign, without it. So that all Sacraments being [in genere Signi] Signs, as all the Roman Doctors do, and must teach; and the Ministers being required to exercise them as such, (as the cited place affirms) the Intention, according to them, must not be terminated or rest in the Outward Act of the Sacraments; but it must in some manner reach the Effect or End of them, without which, we see, They are not made and conferred.  
And hither (to save time) I refer Bellarmin's saying, That the Action is to be done, not as it is a certain Natural work, but as it is a Sacred work, 
| [Sed utest opus Sacrum] de Sacram. l. 1. c. 27.  which equally proves our point, and is to be understood in the like manner.  
§. 6. Gabr. Biel writ in the time between the Two Councils, and hath spoken fully and plainly to our purpose: and his Seniors would assure us, had we a mind to consult them, that his Language was no novelty in the Roman Church. Alexander Alensis 
* Intendere facere quod facit Ecclesia. est intendere abluere exterius, ut Deus abluat interius, de Sacr. Bapt quaest. 8.  may serve to do this, who is very liberal upon the same subject: To Intent to do what the Church doth, is to intent to wash outwardly to the end that God may wash inwardly.  
He tells us, the Sacramental Action [est actio relata] is a Relative Action, and that which it relates to, is the Action of God, and collects [unde intentio respicit utramque actionem] that the Intention respects both the Actions, as a Cause without which there cannot be a Sacrament.  
Our Author hath here taught us by most transparent words, That the Intention must of necessity be carried to the Action of God, which is nothing else but the conferring of Sacramental Grace; and this Grace is the End or Effect of the Sacraments. Which was the Thing to be proved.  
§. 7. Guliel. Parisiensis speaking of Orders, cap. 5. asserts the [mental] Intention to be Essential to the Form of the Sacraments; and that though the words be duly pronounced, yet a contrary Intention evacuates, and robs them of their meaning.  
Again treating of Baptism, cap. 2. he declares, That vicious Ministers cannot deprive the Sacraments of their due Effects, nor defraud the worthy Receivers of them: but he doth it with this reserve, That they strive not against them with a contrary Intention. He implies, All is nothing if that should happen.  
§. 8. Aquinas 
| Cum aliquis non intendit Sacramentum confer. par. 3 q 64. art. 10.  makes the Action void, When the Minister intends not to confer the Sacrament.  
I grant he speaks a little before, as if it were sufficient to intent the bare Action; (art. 8.) But besides the contradiction he would in that case be liable to, the learned Romanists declare he meant no such thing. I shall call two of them out to speak to this, because I would not have so great a man to stand in my way.  
§. 9 Thus speaks Cardinal Cajetan upon the place, 
* Non est intelligenda ut verba sonant, puta quod non requiritur in Ministro Intentio proprie mentalis, sed sufficit Intentio Ecclesiae per verba expressa, quicquid intendit ipse Minister interius.  His mind is not to be understood as the words sound, as if there was not required in the Minister an Intention properly Mental, but the Intention of the Church expressed by the words would suffice, whatever the Minister may intent in his mind.  
§. 10. 
|  Opinio illa salsissima est, ita nullatenas est S. Thomae— Requi●itur secunaum cum Intentio non solum ap. licandi materiam & formam, sed ipsius effectus.  Dom. Soto shall make up the pair, who was one of the most renowned Members of the Trent-Council. As the Opinion that Intending to do the Act only is sufficient, is a most false one; so it is not at all S. Thomas 's— For according to him there is required not only an Intention of applying the Matter and Form, but of the Effect itself.  
§. 11. Aquinas' sense of the Article being fixed, let us further observe Soto's judgement. He delivers it a little before thus, 
* Ea ratione Christu discipulos suos Sacramentorum Ministros sibi substituit. ut sua ipsius Intentione bujusmodi obsequia perficerent.  Christ therefore substituted his Disciples to be Ministers of the Sacraments that they might perform such Offices with his very own Intention.  
And he calls This, an Intention like to that of God.  
Now it being plain, that the gracious Ends or Effects of the Sacraments are intended by Christ, he infers they are also to be Intended by his Ministers. And this he all along makes Essential to a Sacrament.  
§. 12. I cannot forbear to recite what I meet with to this purpose in Altenstaig, viz. That it is required to intent to exhibit the matter and words of the Sacraments, 
| Tanquam ea quae ad certum effectum instituta sunt à Christo, & hoc est exhitere in fide Ecclesiae. Verb. Sacram.  as those things which are instituted by Christ to a certain Effect; and This is to exhibit them in the Faith of the Church.  
§. 13. All I shall say by way of remark upon the several Authors already cited, is only this, That if the Reader hath born in mind, what I was to make out, viz. That the required Intention respects the End or Effect of the Sacraments, he cannot but see that they have manifestly proved it.  
I designed also in a particular manner to confirm my Assertion from those Roman Casuists that have laid down Grounds, from whence the same appears by a fair and unconstrained inference. But to avoid further tediousness, I shall only point to their usual way of handling things of this kind; and subjoin two particular instances, of a pretty odd Nature.  
§. 14. They generally put the Case, That the Sacramental Form [or Words] may be abused by Addition, Substraction, Transposition, and false Pronunciation; and upon This they put the Question, Whether a Sacrament be perfected in such cases. And they commonly resolve it thus, If those Additions, etc. be not corruptive of the Substance of the Form, [that is, if they pervert not the Sense of the Words] there may be a Sacrament notwithstanding: Provided still (Mark that) that the Minister intends not that undue alteration; For if he doth, they conclude the Sacrament to be evacuated. Their Argument lies thus, He that on purpose corrupts the Form may be judged not to intent to do what the Church doth; and without this Intention there is no true Sacrament. But then if the intention be right, the Sacred Work is perfected, notwithstanding the 'foresaid imperfections. The Act is here supposed to be the same, whether it happen to prove a Sacrament, or no; it is the Mental intention then that makes or mars all. Which was the thing to be showed.  
§. 15. Now to the Instances. Soto, on the 'forecited Article, teaches thus, 
* Si quis haberet Intentionem singularem Baptizandi Petrum, scilicet filium Regis cum exclusione cujuscunque alterius, videlicet si ment diceret, Si non es silius Regis, non te Baptizo; tunc si quem alium baptizaret, seu foeminam, Sacramentum non esset validum, quia non interfuisset Intentio Baptizandi illum qui baptizatun.  If any Minister should have a singular Intention to Baptise Peter the King's Son, exclusively of all other Persons, Viz. If he should say in his Mind, if thou be not the King's Son, I Baptise thee not; then if he should Baptise any other Male or Female, the Sacrament would not be valid for want of his intending to Baptise him, who is Baptised.  
§. 16. I take my second Instance out of the Mass book of Pope Pius Quintus 
| Si quis habeat coram se undecim hostias, & intendat consecrare solum decem, non determinans quas decem intendit: in his casibus non consecrat, quia requiritur intentio. De defect. circa Mistress occur. Num. 7.  corrected and set forth by Order of the Trent-Council; where we read,  
If any Priest have Eleven Hosts before him, and intent to Consecrate only Ten, not determining which Ten he intended to Consecrate; in this case there is no Consecration made for want of the Intention.  
§. 17. We are not to imagine that in either of these Cases, the Priest sees his mistake till the Action is over; and therefore must suppose him seriously to perform it, and for aught he knows really to confer Baptism, and consecrate the Eucharist. And yet afterwards it being found out that there are Eleven Wafers instead of Ten; and that the Child, washed solemnly in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was not the King's Son; here is neither Baptism nor Consecration made, for want of an absolute Intention. The Priest had as good have done Nothing.  
Oh, the force and value of the Intention!  
§. 18. But not to protract this overlong Section, I shall virtually cite a hundred Authors more to the same purpose, by speaking a very few Words. All that make Matter, Form, and the Minister's Intention, necessary to the Sacraments, (and which of your Writers that treat of that Subject, do not so?) do mean by the word Intention the interior Intention, the exterior being included in the Act.  
§. 19 In forma intelligitur verbum vocale; saith Sylvest. (Verb. Bapt.) i. e. By the Form is understood the Word spoken.  
And then by proportion; By Matter must be meant Matter applied. And this is supposed to be spoken and done with the Will or Intention. Now then when besides all this, the Intention is added as a distinct thing, it must be interpreted of the interior Intention. The bright Words of Soto shall Seal up this,  
§. 20. Si nulla esset intentio necessaria faciendi quod facit Ecclesia, vana esset assertio Doctorum & Concilii Florentini, qua definitur requiri praeter Materiam & Formam, Intentionem Ministri: Nam in hoc quod dicitur Materia & Forma, intelligitur quod velit tam Materiam applicare quam formam. Actus enim exterior & Volitio interior pro eodem reputantur. Cum ergo insuper addatur requiri intentionem, alia intentio intelligitur. i e.  
If the Intention of doing what the Church doth, was not necessary, the assertion of our Doctors and the Council of Florence were vain, by which it is defined, that besides the Matter and Form, the Intention of the Minister is required: For in the naming the Matter and Form, it is understood that he [the Minister] intends to apply both Matter and Form: For the exterior Act and the interior Intention [of doing that Act] are taken for the same Thing or Act. When therefore it is further added, That the Intention is required, another [Intention] is understood.  
§. 21. Thus, Sir, have I declared that the Intention your Councils require, is to be conversant about the End of the Sacraments; and shown that the Stream of your Authors assist me with their Suffrage. If I err herein, they have led me out of the way: But than it is to your great harm, but not at all to mine. For if they understand not what your Councils require, as Essential to the Sacraments in general, than they must be uncertain whether they have any true Sacrament; and in particular, whether they have that of Orders, and so any true Priests. How can you be certain you have enough, if you know not what is enough? were this the case, my point is proved from your confessed ignorance, as much as it could be from the most shining demonstration.  
§. 22. Indeed, Sir, I have been more luxuriant in my proof of the subject matter of this and the foregoing Section, for these two Reasons: 1. To lay a sure Ground for the deductions I hope to draw anon, to your disadvantage. 2. To confront some false Assertions of a certain Priest of your Communion, made some time ago, to a person of Quality, who was concerned to inquire of him what the doctrine of the Intention amounted to, as established by your Councils.  
He affirmed to the Lady, as I can show under her well known hand, these three things:  
§. 23. 1. That the Intention respected the Exterior Act only, saying, That it is impossible for a Priest that is in his right Wits, to perform the exterior Action required, without Intending to do as he than doth.  
Now I have proved that there is required an Intention of the End, which confounds his false account of the matter.  
§. 24. 2. He said, The Roman Church never declared the Doctrine of the Intention to be matter of Faith.  
But I have proved it to be One, if a Decree or Definition of such Councils as the Body of Roman Catholics hold for General, can Oblige to Faith. And if these cannot do that, farewel Pope Pius' Creed.  
§. 25. 3. He only assigned this for the occasion of the Councils meddling with this matter, viz. That some held an Opinion that the Consecrating and Conferring the Sacraments by madmen, who knew not what they were about, was valid.  
But I have showed, that it is granted aforehand, That the Exterior Action should be Humane, i. e. the issue of previous Knowledge; which a madman, as such, cannot exert. And I have also shown that the Intention the Councils deal about, reaches farther, and is of another Nature. And so his frantic Story is void of Patronage.  
§. 26. I confess School men, treating of their Matters, put every Objection that can possibly come into their too fine spun thoughts; but if a man hatch from thence in his head swarms of Sectaries, that are supposed seriously to embrace the matter of many of them, he can make them exist no where but in his fancy.  
§. 27. And I doubt this is the case, when any one reports there were a Sect of people who held stark and staring Mad men to be effectual Ministers of the Sacraments. Authors do indeed speak of Madmen with a respect to our Case, and pronounce them unfit Ministers, because they (as such) cannot exert Humane Acts: but then their Argument amounts to this, because Mad men cannot do the less, viz. Intent the exterior Act, much less can they do the more, viz. Intent the End or Effect of an Institution; which is required by the Roman Church.  
§. 28. I wish the Assertor would tell us, in what Age there were such a Sect of men; in what Region they lived; who headed them; who began the Error; what Pens seriously defended it; what Bishop excommunicated any man for holding it; or what Pope suspended or deprived any Bishop for embracing it. I would learn what Notoriety of Fact there was for these things, that it should be worth a General Councils while to cast an eye this way, and labour to stop the growing evil.  
§. 29. I have read several Catalogues of Heresies, some Ancient and some Modern, but I can find nothing like This amongst them all.  
I wish my plain dealing with him, to which I have had more than sufficient provocation, may whet him to the innocent revenge of making good against me (if he can) his Affirmations above described. Till this be done, I shall conclude him either a most unlearned man; or one of a poor Spirit, who could find in his heart so to abuse and impose upon a worthy Lady's want of skill in Roman Doctors and Councils.  
Sir, I acknowledge I have stepped out of our way, a while, to salute a friend; but I do not desire you to take any notice of that, unless you please. However, those that are more concerned, will do it; and subscribe to the justice of my Visit.   

SECT. VI The End particularly considered is not required; but generally. The Virtual Intention is required, and held sufficient.  
HAving already proved the Intention of the End to be required, I come now to view your next Question, whether that End be Proximate or Ultimate.  
§. 1. And I must say, I see not what Reason you have to ask this Question here, the matter of it having no necessary influence upon the subject of our debate. For if it be the End, however considered, whether confusedly and in general, or distinctly and in special; it is alike out of the compass of the Inspection of others, which is the formal Ground I argue from, to your Uncertainty of having a true Priesthood or any Sacraments at all.  
I say, if it be the End more generally considered, ex gr. to do an Action as Sacred, as Relative to an Institution, as a Mean to this or that indefinite End; all this comes to one, with a respect to my design.  
§. 2. Nevertheless, I shall cheerfully go some paces (though upon a needless Errand) which way you shall please to drive me. I affirm then, Your Councils and Doctors require not the intending any End, thus, or so distinctly considered or specified; but as something in general, which Christ and the Church; or, Christ or the Church intends to do by the instituted Action.  
§. 3. This something is (it seems) sufficient to the Sacraments, although very hardly, as we may learn from the words of the Trent-Council, which I shall here repeat, There is required of the Ministers of the Sacraments an Intention of doing, at least, what the Church doth. The saltem [at least] sounds, to me, a poor word, where a dogmatical Article is defined: however, I must take it as it is, and shall explain the matter briefly from your Authors.  
§. 4. After G. Biel had told us (as is aforesaid) That the Ministers are required to will that to be done, for which the Sacrament was instituted; he immediately adds,  
Et haec Intentio est duplex, scil. specialis, quâ intendit ut Baptizatus fiat filius Regni; qui est finis remotus: vel propinquus, qui est remissio peccati Originalis & Gratiae infusio; aut quod fiat Chritianus & membrum Ecclesiae militantis: vel generalis, ut fiat quod Ecclesiae intendit, licet non cogitetur aut ignoretur vel etiam non credatur id conferri per baptismum quod Ecclesia intendit, i. e.  
And this Intention is twofold, viz. Special, whereby he intends that the baptised person may attain Salvation; which is the remote End; or that he obtain the pardon of Original Sin and the infusion of Grace; or that he be made a Christian or a Member of the Church Militant; which is the proximate End of it. Or it is general, viz. that That may be done which the Church intends, although it be not considered, nor understood, or not believed that That is conferred by Baptism which the Church intends.  
We see here, it is a very general and indistinct End that is set forth by these words, what the Church intends or doth. And our Author goes on to reach our point in his third Conclusion.  
Ad veritatem Sacramenti non requiritur intentio Ministri respectu. effectus Baptismatis in specie: sed sufficit intendere quod Ecclesia intendit in genere, i. e.  
To the truth of the Sacrament there is not required such an Intention of the Minister as respects the effect of Baptism in special: but it suffices to intent what the Church intends in the general.  
§. 5. De Burgo, (cap. 5.2. par.) having described the Intention in the like manner concludes thus, Requiritur ergo generalis intentio ad minus, etc. i. e. There is a general Intention required at the least, etc. Which exactly jumps with the sense of the Trent definition. But I need cite no more for This, the Roman Doctors being generally of the same mind.  
§. 6. You ask again, Whether the Intention required, he Habitual, Virtual, or Actual. To which my Answer must be the same yourselves use to give, viz. The Habitual is too short, as being no more than one asleep may have: The Actual through humane infirmity and wand'ring of thoughts may sometimes happen to be wanting in well-meaning Ministers, and therefore is not necessarily required. But the Virtual is necessary to the Sacraments.  
§. 7. By Virtual, Roman Catholics mean the force of the Actual Intention, exerted a little before the doing of the Sacramental Action, ex. gr. If a Bishop intends actually to make N. N. a Priest of Christ's Church, (or to do something to him which Christ or the Church hath appointed the Action of Ordination for, or the like,) and goes to Church and attires himself, etc. for that purpose; though while he applies the respective Matter and Form, his mind happens to range out to some other Objects, yet the Action done by virtue of the late Actual Intention hath those influences shed into it from the past Intention, which suffice to perfect the Ordination.  
§. 8. I shall set forth Bellarmine's words to evince the point because they are short and clear, (the Sacram. in gen. l. 1. c. 27.) Non requiritur necessario actualis intentio, nec sufficit habitualis, sed virtualis requiritur & sufficit; quamvis danda sit opera, ut actualis habeatur, i. e.  
Actual Intention is not required necessarily, nor is Habitual sufficient; but a Virtual Intention is required, and is sufficient; although endeavours are to be used, that the Actual may be had.  
§. 9 To him I shall join a Book which will outweigh ten thousand private Authors, viz. the Mass-book of Pope Pius the 5th. (the defect. etc. num. 7.) Si intentio non sit actualis in ipsa Consecratione propter evagationem mentis, sed Virtualis, cum accedens ad Altare intendit facere quod facit Ecclesia, conficitur Sacramentum: etsi curare debet Sacerdos, ut etiam actualem Intentionem abhibeat, i. e.  
If there be not actual Intention in the very Consecration [of the Eucharist] by reason of the wand'ring out of the mind; but a Virtual one, when the Priest coming to the Altar intends to do what the Church doth, the Sacrament is made: although the Priest ought to take care, that he also actually intent.  
We conclude then that the Actual Intention is congruous, but the Virtual is necessary, and sufficient.   

SECT. VII. Roman Catholics not certain of their Priesthood taken in general by any simple or absolute Certainty. Nor certain of it taken in special by any simple, or so much as a Moral Certainty.  
YOur last Question is, What certainty I speak of in my Propositions, (when I deny the Roman Church to be certain She hath any true Priesthood) whether it be Moral, Metaphysical, or Mathematical.  
§. 1. Here I must premise a distinction in Order to the clear resolution of your Question. Your Priesthood may be considered either confusedly and in general, as inherent or existing in some persons of your Church indeterminately considered; as if it were said, there are in the Roman Church some true Priests, although it be not known that This or That individual person be such a one: Or distinctly and in particular, as inherent in These or Those persons determinately considered, whose names may be told, or their persons marked or pointed out. As if it were said, Father. A. or B. is a true Priest.  
§. 2. Now for Answer: I deny the Roman Church is simply or absolutely certain that she hath any true Priesthood, in the first sense. The Proposition is not evident by its own light to all that understand the Terms; and therefore I deny that you have for it the certainty of Intelligence: which is all one, I suppose, with that you call Metaphysical certainty. Nor is it any Conclusion evidently deduced from first Principles, and therefore I deny that you have for it the certainty of Science: which is the same, I suppose, that you call Mathematical certainty. If you make good your Priesthood either of these ways, our understandings could not resist the evidence presented, inasmuch as the Reason of our assent to first Principles is the clear immediate connexion of the Terms; and the Reason of our assent to Scientifical Conclusions is the clear connexion of the Terms with an evident Medium. But your men never pretended to prove this point either of these ways, that I have heard of: nor would I have said one word of this kind, had not the Terms of your Question offered me the occasion. However, to accommodate myself to your thoughts so far as I can, I will suppose, You meant not to use those words, Mathematical and Metaphysical, in a proper sense; but only in an allusive way to denote by them a simple Certainty, equal to that of Intelligence or Science, which you suppose to spring from a divers root, viz. Divine Revelation. But then I must answer on, as I have begun, by denying that you have any Certainty of Faith for the Matter.  
§. 3. For the Proposition taken in the second Sense, viz. That you have any Persons in your Church determinately or singularly considered, as Father A. or B. who are true Priests; I deny that you have for it either the absolute and infallible Certainty of Faith, or so much as a Moral Certainty, properly so called.  
§. 4. And here it will be as needful a piece of work, as any I have yet done, to prepare the Reader for making a sure judgement of what shall follow, to open the Nature of Moral Certainty. And because your Authors are sufficiently agreed about it, it will not matter much, which of them I call forth to describe it. Let Cardinal Bellarmine be the Man, who sets forth the Matter very distinctly (Le justif. lib. 3. cap. 2.) He then (as others do) having divided Certainty into Evident, and Obscure Certainty, assigns three degrees to both of them. Of the Evident he gives the first degree to first Principles, the second to Science, the third to Experience. Of Obscure Certainty he gives the first degree to Divine Faith, the second to Humane Faith, the third to Opinion.  
Having said this in a previous way, I shall now produce what he says touching Moral Certainty. Secundum gradum, etc. Those things (saith he) obtain the second degree of Obscure Certainty, which are believed for the sake of Humane Authority, but so confirmed and celebrated a One, [ut omnem formidinem prorsus excludat] that it altogether excludes all fear. Such as are these, That Cicero and Virgil were famous Men: that Augustus governed a great part of the World happily: that there are many famous Cities in Provinces at a great distance from us, as Alexandria in Egypt, Constantinople in Thracia, Jerusalem in Palestine, Antioch in Asia. And this is called the Certainty of Humane Faith, or Moral Certainty; which although it be not so great, that it can be no way false, (for every Man is a Liar) yet it is so great, that he may deservedly be judged temerarious, who thinks or disputes against it. Thus Bellarmine.  
§. 5. Hence it is obvious to collect, 1. That Moral Certainty is the experimental knowledge of others conveyed to us by due Testimony. 2. That this Certainty bred from the Evidence of the Motives (I say not of the Object) that cause our assent, so far fills the Mind with tranquillity and security, that there is no place left for rational doubts or fears, lest our conceptions should not be answerable to their Objects. And truly when I reflect upon my belief in this kind, and the grounds of it, (and fear can only arise that way) I find myself no more tempted to doubt, whether there hath been such a City as Constantinople in Thracia, which I have never seen, than I am whether there hath been such a City as Lisbon in Portugal, which I have seen. Though it be not repugnant to the Nature of Man to be deceived, and to deceive; yet how such Multitudes of Men of several ranks, qualifications and Countries, should be deceived in a most sensible Object; or conspire to deliver a falsehood for truth, especially when by the report they could not hope to reap to themselves any possible advantage, (this, I say) is so utterly unperceivable by any regular Thoughts, that he may well be deemed to want the use of his reason, who is afraid of being deceived in his belief, that there hath been such a place as Constantinople, upon so credible Testimony. The bare possibility of a thing's being otherwise than we judge it to be, (when the exactest disquisition can make no more of it) so little affects the Mind, that I have not so much as the Shadow and Figure of fear, lest there should not be such a place as Constantinople.  
I know indeed there may be some degrees of Moral Certainty proportioned to the Motives or Mediums that beget it; but yet it belongs to the Nature of it in general, firmly to adhere to its Object, from the perception of truth and conviction of the Mind, so far that it is not in our power, acting reasonably, to descent from it, or to fear that we judge amiss.  
This Point will yet look brighter, if I set forth what Bellarmine immediately subjoins to the Words last cited.  
§. 6. Tertium gradum habent illa, etc. Those things (saith he) have a third degree of Certainty, which rest on so many signs and conjectures, as render a Man secure and exclude anxiety, [non tamen formidinem omnem expellunt] but yet expel not all fear; and this is called conjectural Certainty, and rather belongs to Opinion than Faith. Thus he.  
§. 7. Now by comparing Moral and Conjectural Certainty, according to their Descriptions newly given, we find a considerable difference between them. The first shuts out fear, as being the result of a brighter Motive; the latter lets in fear through the in-evidence of its Medium. The first is a firm adherence to a Thing as true, the latter is an infirm adherence to a Thing as likely to be true. And therefore the first deserves the Name of Certainty, but the latter is abusively so called. Wherefore the Cardinal seeing what he calls Conjectural Certainty, unworthy to stands upon the same level with Moral, reasonably thrusts it down into an inferior Place.  
§. 8. I know indeed that Aristotle and his Followers, speaking as Natural Philosophers, make not Humane Faith [or Moral Certainty] a Middle thing, nor place it in a distinct Class, between Science and Opinion: But the Reason of that is, it was not their design to make any exact comparison of the greater or less strength or weakness of Assents to particular contingent things, and to give them distinct Seats, accordingly; but to compare them in a lump with Science; and to show, That the highest Assent below That, may possibly be false. And so they leave these two leapt up in a Bundle without distinction, under the Name of Opinion. But those that speak of them, as Moral Philosophers do very manifestly, and upon good Cause distinguish them, as Bellarmine hath here done; making Moral Certainty to exclude fear, and Opinion to admit it. And none can question, but when there is foundation for them in the Nature of things, distinctions are to be allowed.  
§. 9 But if any list to retain the former way of speaking, it will come to the same; provided we thus distinguish of Opinion, viz. Opinion is either most vehement and intense, such as, Morally speaking, excludes all fear; Or light and weak, which necessarily gives way to fear: And provided we make Moral Certainty the same thing with the first Member of this distinction: Men may be allowed to use what words they please in Polemical Discourses, supposing we understand what they mean by them.  
Thus, Sir, have I dispatched the Explication of those Terms that you called for, and of some others which might puzzle some Readers, unless they were attended with such help. This work I thought I was obliged to extend to an unusual length for these Reasons, (mentioned before) 1. To enable the more unlearned to become competent Judges of the strength of my Arguments, or your Answers to them. 2. To save myself much possible trouble of Papers, which might be multiplied upon Occasion of a few Words left in ambiguity and darkness. When men are once engaged in Controversy, we find by daily Experience a small matter serves almost endlessly to keep them doing, to the loss of their time, and disquiet of their Persons. 3. I add, our Disputative part will look clearer, when we need not blend it with requiring and giving any explanation of words.  
Now because what I have done in this kind lies scattered in the several Sections, I shall gather them together, and in brief, present them at once to your view, in the following Section.   

SECT. VIII. The several Explications before given, Summed up. And the Question resolved into its Parts.  
1. I Have declared, That your Councils require the Minister's Intention, as necessary to the Being of a Sacrament. Sect. 3.  
2. That the Intention they require, is not that of the Outward Act, (its presence to the Act being presupposed.) Sect. 4.  
3. But it is That of the End or Effects. Sect. 5.  
4. That it is not necessary to Intent the End distinctly considered, as Proximate or Ultimate, but as something in general, which relates to Christ's Institution, or the Appointment or Practice of the Church, or the like. Sect. 6.  
5. That a Virtual Intention is Necessary and Sufficient. Sect. 7.  
Your Sense of the Terms must (as was said before) be mine: And that I have truly represented your Sense, your Authors already produced, or referred to, will amount to a full Certificate. They will secure me upon the Supposition made, that the Doctrine of your Councils is capable of being understood, at least by the leading Members of your own Church. If it be not, you magnify those your Councils without Reason, which either could not speak intelligibly, or for some odd Ends seemed to define Faith, when they did Nothing.  
6. I deny that your Priesthood taken Indeterminately or in general, doth (in an Ordinary way, or without Special Revelation) admit the infallible Certainty of Divine Faith: Or that taken determinately, or in particular, it admits either the aforesaid Certainty of Faith, or an Experimental, or yet a Moral Certainty properly so called.  
§. 1. By certainty, I still mean an Intellectual certainty, such as is consentaneous to its Object, which is the Measure and Foundation of it.  
These things being thus set in open view, it will be easily apprehended, That our Question is a Complex Question, and is resolvable into two simple ones; which as they are stated, will stand thus,  
§. 2. 1. Whether the Roman Church, which makes Priestly Orders necessarily depend upon the Ordaining Bishops (at least) Virtual Intention of the End of Ordination, can be certain with an absolute or infallible Certainty of Faith, that they have some true Priests, in general.  
§. 3. 2. Whether that Church— can be certain with the aforesaid Certainty of Faith; or with a Moral Certainty; That they have This or That true Priest in particular.  
Now I deny to your Church the forenamed respective Certainties of their having a true Priesthood, in either Sense: and which is more, have taken upon me to prove the Negative, a task I cannot complain of, (though it be not very natural) because I was, for once, content to take it upon myself.  
Pray mark, That I moreover deny a Theological Certainty of your Priesthood taken in either of the Senses of it . That is, I deny that it can be concluded either from two Revealed Propositions, or from one Revealed and another Evident by the Light of Nature.  
Bellarmine's Silence of it tempted me to omit it in the last Section.    

THE SECOND PART BEING Argumentative.  

SECT. I. The general Order of proceeding. The first part of Mr. G's. Letter set down and examined.  
HAVING finished the Explications required of me, in a far other and ampler manner than was required, and whatever else I thought useful in a previous way, for the clearer sight of the point in question; I shall now declare in what general Order I purpose to proceed.  
§. 1. 1. I shall evince by managing the Medium already exhibited, that the Roman Church is uncertain of their having any Priesthood; as Priesthood is taken determinately, or (as I may say) in the parcels.  
This was the only thing I formerly stood upon, when I had occasion in a very short Paper (a single Folio page) to expose the Evils incident to Roman Catholics from their doctrine of the Intention. Let me say, by the way, I mean that Paper, to which one of your Priests told me in your hearing, he had some years ago seen an Answer. I add, I wish I could see it too, that I might, for some reasons, compare it with yours.  
And this was the only thing I intended to do at the first starting of the Argument with you; as knowing it would enable me (when made good) to load you sufficiently with unwelcome consequences; and to set That in the light, which it would be your interest to keep in darkness.  
§. 2. 2. I shall consider a little (beyond my first purpose) how far your Priesthood taken indeterminately, and (as I may say) in the gross, will follow the fate of the other.  
This being said, I come to produce your Letter purporting an Answer to my Argument, and to examine its force. If I find myself so bridled up by it that I cannot run my designed course, I will acknowledge the power of your Curb: but if not, I surely go forward to your loss.  
The former part of Mr. Goodall's Letter.  
Sir, It was alleged to you that the Orders of the English Church had been by Roman Catholics judged invalid by reason of your altering the Form of Ordination, and sufficient discovering your. Intention not to do as the Church doth in that Sacrament. And your way of defending your Ordination seemed to me very strange, when you retorted in this manner: I deny, say you, that the Roman Church is certain that she hath any Priesthood or Sacraments according to her own Principles, and I oblige myself to deal with Mr. Goodall about this point. Witness my hand, Thomas Marsden. I accepted and subscribed, Edward. Goodall. For when you deny that we are certain that we have any Priesthood according to our own Principles; it were but reasonable for you to expect of us, that we should be uncertain at least, that you have any, since you so earnestly contend to derive your Succession and Orders from us, [See for this Mr. Mason, Archbishop Laud, Bishop Bramhal, Bishop Taylor, Dr. Fern, Dr. Hammond, etc.] And there is an old rule, you know, Nil dat quod in se non habet. But whatsoever you pretend of our being uncertain concerning the truth of our Priesthood, yet, for our comfort, you are certain enough of it, and therefore you never re-ordain those Priests, who sometimes, though rarely, Apostatise from the Roman Catholic to join in your Communion. The words you have used in Stating the point against the Roman Catholic Church are very extraordinary, when you deny her to be certain that she hath any Priesthood or Sacraments, according to her own principles. Thus you.  

The Examination of it follows.  
Sir, Although the Prefatory part of your Letter here recited, does not at all affect my Argument by way of Answer, and so without any prejudice might be passed by without regard; yet on other accounts I find it my concern to dissect it, and to expose its putrid parts.  
§. 3. You then undertake two things in it, 1. To relate some matters of Fact which passed between you and me. 2. To insinuate some disadvantages incurred on my part, through (at least) an unwary manage of things. Both these shall be inspected.  
For the first: Your Relation of Fact contains two things;  
1. Your charging the Church of England with the invalidity of her Orders, both because we had altered the Form of Ordination, and also discovered our Intention not to do as the Church doth, in that Sacrament; as you term it.  
2. My attempt to discharge her by denying the Roman Church to be certain, that she hath a true Priesthood or Sacraments, according to her own principles; and obliging myself to deal with you on that Head. This is what you declare for Fact.  
Now I confess, were the case exactly such as you represent it, I made but a very weak defence of our Church, how freely soever I might strike at yours. To argue that my Coin is current, because my Neighbour cannot prove his to be so, would be very inconcluding. But what would not a man give for Faith in a Historian!  
§. 4. Sir, You have said both too little, and too much, concerning yourself and me.  
1. Too little. For when you affirmed our Orders to be invalid in the judgement of Roman Catholics, I justified them by those of the Roman Church unto which our first Reformers were admitted. And when you said the Nullity of our Orders proceeded from our forsaking the old Ordinal, and from our giving power to the Ordained only to dispense the Word and Sacraments, which, said you, any Deacon might do; I shown how you mistook the thing by taking the word dispense in too narrow a sense, whereas it comprehends the whole duty of Gospel-Ministers; and therefore the alteration was only verbal and not real.  
This Fact I have set forth more particularly, Part I. Sect. 1. whither I refer the Reader.  
This, Sir, was a direct Answer to your Objection, and consequently a perfect defence of our Priesthood against your assault.  
Now I am sorry you should conceal not only the forenamed Relation I made to your Orders, but also the Instance you gave, and my Answer to it, on purpose (as much as I can gather from your words) to make people believe I had nothing at all to say in behalf of our Ministry, but deserted it at first view of your wretched Objection, and requited you with a bare Recrimination: Nay, which is yet more gross, that I used that as a Medium, and my only Medium for the Vindication of our Church. Your own Conscience, besides the Testimony of our Auditors, (who were no Children,) can assure you that such was the Matter of your Objection, and such the Matter of my Answer, as is set down before.  
§. 5. 2. You have said too much, in reporting that to invalidate our Orders, you urged our sufficient discovery of our Intention not to do as the Church doth. This, Sir, I am obliged to call pure fiction, no such words being named but by me upon the Question now in hand, after our slight skirmishes concerning the other were ended.  
I could make your own Author's ridicule you about the very matter of your charge, but I forbear lest you should take some light occasion from it to desert your less grateful POST. What I quarrel is only your report: and truly I would hope that some cares or troubles had blended your thoughts when you writ these things, being loath to think there was much of Will in these Errors. However, I would as a friend advise you to be cautious hereafter, of treating even your enemies at such a rate.  
§. 6. For the Second, viz. the disadvantages you suppose me to lie under by some unlucky or unadvised proceed on my part. (I know not well how to word it.)  
§. 7. The first (reputed) disadvantage is my strange way of defending our Church by taxing yours. Answer, This is washed off already by detecting (to speak softly) your partial Relation of Fact.  
The Second is, If we make you Uncertain of your own Priesthood, you must be supposed to be, at least, Uncertain of Ours, who contend to derive our Orders and Succession from you.  
§. 8. Answer, 1. Pray, What mortal harm is this to us, who rest not for any thing of moment upon the sole judgement of the Roman Church? 2. For our deriving our Orders from you, we mean only this by it, that our first Reformers received their Orders from Christ by the Ministry of such English Bishops as were in Communion with the Roman Church; and these considered only as Christian Bishops. Which surely might be done, and yet you may have embraced a Doctrine, which till you discard it, will render you uncertain that you have, and consequently convey true Orders. And whether that of the Intention be not such is to be the matter of the approaching tug between us, and therefore is to be referred to its proper place. 3. Your Nihil dat quod in se non habet, seems quite besides our business; which is not to scan whether you have none, but whether you are uncertain of your having any Priesthood. You may have and give, without being certain of either, whilst you hold to the Doctrine of the Intention.  
The third is, Though we pretend you to be Uncertain, yet for your Comfort, We are certain enough of the truth of your Priesthood, and therefore never reordain, etc.  
§. 9 Answer. You are, it seems, grown wonderful kind upon a sudden, in granting us to be certain enough of the truth of your Priesthood.  
To be certain, is a great Word: Certain enough, a greater: And your Priesthood is a great Matter to be certain of. You puzzle me to think How this should be: For your great Writers allow not us (you call Heretics) to understand Scripture, or Fathers, or Councils, but appropriate all this to the Sons of your Church. And then what Way is there left for us to arrive at this Certainty? But I will take your Word for it, and desire you to remember against another time, that Protestants (whilst such) may be certain of Matters of no small moment in Religion. But I should not, I think, build too much upon this concession, because I have sometimes found a trick in things of this kind, viz. Our judgement is good when we declare any thing in your Favour: But when we charge you (to the best of our judgements) with any Errors, We are very Idiots.  
§. 10. This is surprising also, that you build Comfort upon our Certainty of your Priesthood. I had thought Roman Catholics were so top full of Comfort from their own Grounds, that there was no room left for our supplying them, but you have undeceived me here; We add, it seems, to your stock. Comfort is a precious thing; and you ought henceforth, instead of counting us a mere Offence to you, to acknowledge us for your Benefactors.  
§. 11. But hark you. If we be certain of the Thing (which you grant) and you chance to be uncertain, how redound this to our disadvantage, unless our perfection be reckoned against us as a Crime? Or, what is the Reason of your mentioning our Certainty here? Is it, that if we be certain, you must be so too?  
Non sequitur. If one Man so hoodwink himself that he cannot rightly distinguish Objects relating either to himself or others, may not he yet do both, who keeps the muffle off his face. This is the case, You are hoodwinked with the Doctrine of Intention (as will be found anon) but we are not so: And till you put that off, you will not be able to see any one man in your Church to be a true Priest. And, by the way, if you put off That, you withal put off your (pretended) Infallibility.  
The Fourth is, That my Words are very Extraordinary, when I say, I deny the Roman Church to be certain that She hath any Priesthood or Sacraments, according to her own Principles.  
§. 12. The Extraordinary words you refer to, if I may guests by the score of your Pen under them, (to express which, I have put them in a different Character) are these,— any Priesthood or Sacraments.  
Answer. The words are ordinary, that is, in familiar use, taken single, or apart; and in their Contexture they are not otherwise, unless they give impertinent Sense or Nonsense. But till you be at leisure to make this appear, I shall not be at leisure to frame an Apology.  
§. 13. But you may perhaps think it extraordinary, that I deny you to be certain— according to your own Principles, and may have put your lineal Mark under the foregoing Words by mistake. For I perceive, that for some reason or other, you afterwards give me a Memento concerning them. If it chance to be so, (for that I suppose is but a small Error) I shall return a few words to it:  
Had I made a Doctrine common to you and us the Basis of my Argument, though my manifest Inferences from it must have bound you, yet I could not properly have called this Arguing from your own Principles: But if I prove the undertaken Conclusion from a peculiar Article of your own, viz. that of the Intention; than you are uncertain that you have a Priesthood, etc. according to your Principles; forasmuch as a Conclusion evidently deduced is the genuine issue of its Principles or Premises, and virtually contained in them.  
§. 14. Thus have I (if I flatter not myself) disarmed the several disadvantages you suppose me to have incurred, of all the Advantages you could hope to reap from them; and therefore abide hitherto in a state of safety. Which is all a Man can desire, considered as Defendant; and I have sustained that Notion well-nigh throughout this whole Section.  
Having done with the Proem of your Letter, I shall in the next place set forth the Answering part of it.    

SECT. II. Mr. Goodall sets forth the Argument, and his Answer to it, as follows.  

— BUT your bare saying so, will not make the World believe it. Let us then see how you undertake to prove it.  
All Churches, say you, that make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition, which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled, must be uncertain whether they have any true Priesthood. But the Roman Church doth so. Ergo, The Roman Church is uncertain, whether she hath any true Priesthood.  
You endeavour to prove your Minor Proposition after this Manner,  
The Intention of the Priest is a Condition, say you, which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled or no in Ordination. But the Church of Rome requires the Intention of the Bishop to Ordination. Ergo,  
The Church of Rome requires a Condition in Ordination, which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled or No.  
I admit of the following Interpretation, wherein you say, That by every Man living you mean all Persons contradistinguished to the Ordaining Bishops.  
In answer to your Syllogisms or forms of Argumentation, you must give me leave first to distinguish in the major Proposition of the former, between that Knowledge which is obtained by the Observation of the exterior Actions and Gestures, and attention to the Words of the Prelates in any particular Ordinations; and that knowledge we have from the consideration of the Nature and End of Ordination in general, and which is also necessarily deduced from other known Principles of the Roman Catholic Church grounded upon Divine Revelation.  
First then, if you understand by knowing here knowing in the former way only, which you seem to me to do, I deny this your first Proposition to be true. For supposing (not granting) that the Roman Catholic Church doth make Priestly Ordination to depend upon a Condition, that no Man living, contradistinguished from the Ordaining Bishop, knows, in the former way (viz. by observing only what is outwardly done, etc.) Whether it be fulfilled or no, yet it doth not follow that she must be uncertain whether she have any true Priesthood: Because others, besides the Ordaining Prelates, know, that she hath true Priesthood by the second way of knowledge , that is, from the nature and end of the thing, and necessary deduction from other true Principles: For they know, as to the nature of the thing, that it is Morally impossible that all the Prelates in the Roman Catholic Church should be so Malicious, as wilfully to have omitted any thing in Ordination, which they believed to be essential to it, and which the Church requires as so, supposing it possible for them to do it, and not be discovered. It is impossible for us to believe, according to our Principles, that they should all turn Devils, and conspire, as much as in them lies, to damn the whole Church in their time, and all succeeding Ages, when withal they could propose no advantage at all to themselves by this, but the clean contrary. Again, Roman Catholics hold this as a Principle, viz. That there is but one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, and that This, in the Communion of which they live, is It; and that God will preserve and continue this Church to the World's end, and all this from Divine Revelation.  
Now they are not so dull therefore, as not to be able to conclude necessarily from hence, that they must always have a true Priesthood: For the Means is necessary for the end. Therefore whatsoever Intention of the Prelates is by them believed, as necessary for this end, they do certainly believe according to their Principles, that God's Providence will secure it. His Omnipotence is able to make good his Fidelity. Remember now that you are arguing with Roman Catholics, according to their own Principles, and these last mentioned are certainly so.  
Thus I have showed the first Proposition in your first Syllogisin to be false, though upon it your whole Argumentation depends. Secondly, If you mean by Knowing that way of Knowledge which is thus necessarily deduced from Principles, and the Nature and End of Ordination, then for the last mentioned Reason, the Minor of your former Syllogism, and the Major of your latter are both false. For the Roman Church doth not make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition which no man living besides the Ordaining Bishops know, (viz. in the way of knowledge last mentioned) whether it be fulfilled. And the Intention of the Ordaining Bishop is not a Condition, which no man, besides himself, thus knows to be fulfilled. If you understand the word knows in one of these senses in your first Proposition, and in another in your following, than your Syllogism is vicious, because it hath four terms.  
My Answer will be made more clear by an Instance which I shall use by way of Retort upon your Argument. You take it for a Principle amongst you, That there is a certain number of those that are truly elected to Salvation, in your Communion. And you will allow this also as a principle that these Elect must have true saving Grace in their hearts, as a condition necessary to their Salvation; which saving Grace because you do not know to be in any particular man, therefore you cannot be certain that he is one of those that is Elected to Salvation: yet you would say that the man were a very bad Logician, and maliciously bend against you that should thus argue: That Church which makes Salvation depend upon a Condition, which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled in order to Salvation, must be uncertain whether they have any who shall be saved in their Communion. But the English doth so. Ergo, The English Church is uncertain whether they have any which shall be saved in their Communion.  
True Grace in the heart is a condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no in order to Salvation. But the English Church requires true Grace in the heart in order to Salvation. Ergo,  
The English Church requires a Condition in order to Salvation which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no. For you will say that in the general way of knowledge beforementioned you know certainly that this Condition is fulfilled, though you know it not as to particulars. The Argument may be thus applied to any Christian Church in the world, or to all of them together; but you see it is vicious upon the same reason that I have alleged against yours, as is manifest: Therefore so is yours too. I desire you also to take notice here, that I do not deny that the Intention of the Ordaining Prelate may be sufficiently known in both the ways of Knowledge abovementioned, which will make the case different from the instance but now brought. But it is enough for the present that I have fully answered your Argument.    

SECT. III. Mr. G's Answer summed up, and some strictures made upon it.  
SIR,  
I Have done you justice in truly exhibiting your Answer, and have presented it at once, as it lies in your Paper, to the Readers view; lest if I had given it in parcels, and interposed my Reflections by the way, it might have been said, I had robbed it of somewhat of its beauty or strength by breaking its face or dependence. The sum of it (to my understanding) comes to this,  
§. 1. The Ordaining Bishop's Intention is knowable either by the observation of his doing the Exterior Action, and his Gesture, in particular Ordinations: or by considering of the nature and end of Ordination in general, and also by deductions from other known Principles of your Church grounded on Revelation. You deny not but it is knowable both of these ways, but you seem to fix your confidence especially on the latter: and so between hope and fear, apply your distinction to several of my Propositions. Supposing, not granting, say you, it cannot be known that way, yet it may this way, and so if the first way fail, our Church is not yet uncertain of her Priesthood. Then you tell more particularly what you mean by Nature and End of Ordination. 1. As to the Nature of the Thing, that it's Morally impossible all the Priests of your Church should maliciously conspire to omit in Ordination any thing which they believe to be essential to it, and which the Church requires as such; and thereby endeavour to damn the whole Church. 2. That this is a Principle with you, That the Roman Church (I mean it in your latitude of sense) is the Universal Church, which Christ hath promised to maintain and propagate to the world's end. 3. That your Priesthood is a necessary mean to this end, and therefore God's power will make good his promise, by the continuation of your Priesthood. Lastly, you pretend to retort the like Argument I have urged against you, and that it failing, mine must do so. To this purpose you.  
§. 2. In the way to the work I chief intent, I shall acquaint you with a few of the incongruities of your Answer, reserving the farther sifting of it to its proper place.  
§. 3. 1. When you have distinguished of Knowing a Condition to Ordination to be gained either by observing the Ordaining Prelates exterior Action, Words and Gestures, etc. Or by considering the Nature and End of Ordination, etc. You say, if I understand by knowing, knowing in the former way only, which you say, I seem to you to do, than the first Proposition of my first Syllogism is false.  
Now that the Reader may see whether you dream not both of my sense of the word knowing, and also of the falseness of the Proposition, I will set it down before his eyes. It is thus,  
All Churches that make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled, must be uncertain whether they have any true Priesthood.  
Let it be noted that these are the very first words put by way of Argument upon the Question, and then let any man tell me what he sees in them that hath any appearance so grossly to shackle and confine my sense of the word knows. Nay, I must first be supposed to act the mad man before I could seem so to mean: for to what purpose do I charge another with the ignorance of a thing, and hope to annoy him with consequences drawn from that ignorance, if all this while I suppose that though he cannot know it one way, yet he may know it well another, and so is not at all ignorant as I pronounce him to be. Sure it must be thought I meant it could no way be known, speaking relatively to the charge I give, which appears in the state of my Question.  
Now, Sir, I leave it to judgement what a sorry shift you have made to get a colour to accuse a Proposition of Falsehood. I also leave it to judgement, whether it is not most probable that the Un-Scholar like course you took of deferring to call for the State of the Question, till your Answer was given, was not chosen on purpose, that when your Matters failed, you might have this to say, for aught I knew he might have understood the terms otherwise. But it will not serve you for a Blind, even to the meanest capacity that reads what I have said of this, Part I. Sect. II.  
It remains then that your Supposition is false, and my Proposition true, for any thing you have said, as yet.  
§. 4. 2. I note, If your making and applying the said distinction to the former Syllogism be either a necessary or proper work, than you were wanting to your cause at Prescot, where you barely denied the Minor without any hint of distinction or limitation offered; or saying one word to the Major.  
§. 5. 3. You put me in mind, that I am to prove you Uncertain according to your own principles. Which is a needless office, since you find me doing it already, if you own (as you must) these two Articles to be your Principles, viz. That the Intention is necessary to the Sacraments, and That Ordination is truly and properly a Sacrament. But then for you to take a poor colour from those words to mention your other (fanciful) principles, particularly your believing yourselves to be the Catholic Church, and to aim at obliging me by virtue of those words of mine, to submit to your deductions from them, is an apparent design to escape from me, and such as betrays your apprehension of the necessity you are under to quit the field. I have accounted for the sense of those words before, and will keep you within just Boundaries.  
§. 6. 4. I shall show from the manifest drift of your Answer, that it is not a full Answer as you pretend, and your undiscerning Friends proclaim it to be. This will appear as follows.  
§. 7. I purposed at first, as I have told you, only to prove you Uncertain of having any true Priests in particular, because the Prelate's Intention is not discoverable in your particular Ordinations (an Opponent, let me say, by the way, may be allowed to give the Sense of his own words, provided the Sense he gives make against his Adversary, and so contain him within the compass of an opposition to him.)  
§. 8. I add, it appears you apprehended That to be, at least, part of my meaning: for when you had distinguished of Knowing the Prelate's Intention either by observing his Actions Words and Gesture in particular Ordinations, or by considering the Nature, etc. you say thus, If you under stand by Knowing here, Knowing in the former way only, which you seem to me to do, etc. I meant, Sir, at that time what in part I seemed to you to mean, viz. to confound the certainty of your Ordinations in particular. And it was sufficient to argue from your Not knowing by any sort of means the Ordainers, Intention in particular Ordinations to your Not knowing the Ordained, in particular, to be true Priests; there being with you and essential dependence between the one and the other. The rest your words fix upon me you shall hear of afterwards, as you have done in part already.  
§. 9 You knew I meant this, as appears; and now I refer it to all discerning Readers whether you have hinted one single ground in your Answer in Bar of such my attempt against you; or so much as pretend you have. For aught you have said, I may go on with my design against you without stop or remora. I perceive you thought, I might also by defeating your Certainty of having any Priesthood, in particular, go on to conclude by way of Induction your Uncertainty of it, in general; and therefore you have cast up some sort of Mud-walls (whose strength I shall try anon) to secure yourself on that side: but you have left yourself naked and open, where you were sensible I must first assault you. Which happened not, I think, for want of regard to your cause, but because you had no general story to tell, which would seem to secure you, as to this.  
§. 10. 5. I apprehend not your Answer to be either necessary or artificial. When you hold the Intention knowable in both the ways you mention, and consequently that my Propositions you apply your distinctions to, are altogether or absolutely false, what need you as Respondent, do more than Simply deny them? In a course of Argumentation, a full stop is that way put to Falsehood; and so there needed not very many Words to have effected this. It is the Truth of Propositions in one Sense, and not in another, that makes distinctions requisite; and therefore yours cannot be requisite while you deny Mine to be true in any Sense. The manner of applying Distinctions by Learned men evinces all I say, which usually runs thus, If the Word, or, etc. be taken in this Sense, your Proposition is false for this or that Reason; but if in that Sense, I may grant the Thing without any disadvantage to myself.  
But if a Man pleases to make an unnecessary distinction, saying, Such a Proposition may admit these two Senses, but it is false in both of them; and if he proceed to assign Reasons why it is not true in one of those Senses, methinks Order requires he should likewise do it in the other, there being the same Reason he should omit or perform it in both.  
§. 11. This, Sir, is your Case; your Answer is made up partly of a distinction, which is unnecessary upon your Supposition of the absolute falsity of my Propositions; and partly of (seeming) Reasons given why they are false in one of the two Senses, mentioned; but there is no Cause alleged why they are not true in the other: Wherefore I conclude your Answer is neither necessary nor Artificial.  
I hearty beg the Readers pardon for having spent too much time in the more general consideration of your Answer, which yet I have done to undeceive the Applauders of it. I shall now bend myself to my Undertaken Province, viz. to prove the Major of my second Syllogism, to which your distinction may (in some sort) be applied, though it could not congruously to any Proposition in the first.   

SECT. iv The Intention proved not to be Knowable by Reason.  
SIR, the Proposition which you deny, and I am now to prove, is this, The Intention of the Bishop is a Condition which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled or no in Ordination. To be short and clear, I put it thus, No Man knows whether or no the Bishop's Intention be present in Ordination.  
We are to keep in mind, that his Intention of the End (in some sense or other, in some degree or other) is here meant 
* Pard. l. Sect. 5. , and that the Intention is a mere interior Act of the Will, as was shown above 
| Par. l. Sect. 4. §. 1. . This premised, Thus I prove the Point:  
§. 1. No man knows whether the Bishop's Intention be present or no in Ordination, either by Reason or Authority. Ergo, No man knows whether or no the Bishop's Intention be present in Ordination.  
All the ways whereby the Intention can be supposed to be known are put in the Antecedent; if Which be proved, the Consequent must be good.  
Now I proceed to prove the Parts of the Antecedent in Order.  
1. It cannot be known by Reason, as I prove thus,  
§. 2. No man knows whether or no the Bishop's Intention be present in Ordination, either by the Evidence they have of it in its self, or in any Effects of it: Or (which comes all to one) no man knows it either by Intuition or Discourse, Ergo, No man knows by Reason whether or no it be present in Ordination.  
All the ways that can be supposed to know the Intention by Reason, are reckoned up in the Antecedent; and therefore if That be made good, the Consequent stands firm, by reason of its just dependence on it.  
I shall evince that it can be known neither of these ways; and shall use more and freer words to do it, than a rigorous frame of Argumentation would admit, because Men not bred to the strict formality of discourse may that way judge more naturally of what is offered; and might otherwise be at some loss.  
§. 3. I shall, in passing, describe Seeing of a thing in itself, or intuitive Knowledge to be That which is form by the proper Idea, or Similitude of the Thing known, and when the Understanding is carried immediately to the Object, without the help of Discourse. It may be illustrated by our Experience of Sensitive intuition, ex. gr. We immediately know those proper Objects of Sight that are set before our eyes; and not by any run of our thoughts from one thing to another, in order to get the Knowledge of them. By this we may measure the Nature of intuitive Intellection. Now to the Point.  
§. 4. 1. The Intention of one Man cannot be known to another, in itself, or by intuitive Intellection. For though God hath given us Faculties to assure us immediately of the proper Objects of our Senses, and of those Verities usually called First Principles, or Common Notions, by which we measure the knowledge of other things; yet he hath not thought fit to give us any, immediately to inspect the secrets of another's heart. Now the Intention of the Bishop, whereof we treat, is most properly one of those Secrets.  
Liberty and Freedom is Essential to the Will, (which is the only power capable of exerting that Act:) and therefore, though it be furnished with all prae-requisites to its Acting, yet it may intent, or it may not; and how can any man pretend to know whether it do, or not? Humane Understanding cannot penetrate the recesses of that free immaterial power, nor break open that best secured of all created Closets.  
§. 5. So far are the particular mere Acts of the Will from being pervious to the eye of man, that according to the most and greatest Authors, the Angels themselves cannot (at least, this way) know them. Aquinas, Cajetan, Suarez, Valentia, Vasquez, Hurtad, and many more, determine the Thing, as I have said: And indeed the case is so clear, that I need but touch upon the words of one or two of them.  
The Question in Aquinas, is 
* Vtrum Angeli cognoscunt cogitationes cordium. , Whether the Angels know the thoughts of the heart? And he resolves it in the Negative, upon this ground 
| Ex sola voluntate dependet quòd aliquis actu aliqua consideret. Pars 1. Quaest. 57 Art 4. , It wholly depends upon the Will that any one actually considers any thing. Because the Will is the only power in Man, that is formally free, and this power sets the understanding on work, he concludes that the particular acts of the understanding cannot immediately be known by the Angels themselves. If then these cannot be known for the Reason alleged, much less can the mere Acts of the Will, which is intrinsically and formally free.  
Cardinal Cajetan words it thus 
* Dicimus quod Cogitatio, co quod volita seu libera, est naturaliter occulta. in locum. , We say that the Thought, because it is voluntary or free, is therefore naturally secret, or hidden.  
Suitably to these two Authors doth Hurtad offer the same Doctrine by way of remark 
| Adverte secretum cordis esse solos actus voluntatis. Metaph. Disp. 12. Sect. 4. §. 30. . Mark, saith he, that only the Acts of the Will are the Secrets of the Heart.  
Now if the Will be sealed up from the view of Angels, much more is it from that of Men. Were it needful, Saint Paul's Question would put this Point out of doubt, 1 Cor. 2.11. What Man knoweth the things of a Man, save the Spirit of Man which is in him?  
§. 6. It will farther appear, that these Secrets fall not within the immediate cognizance of Man, if I show in a few words, that they are only open to the eye of God, Who at once knows all things, past, present, and to come, by a pure and immutable Act; that is, by his very Essence. The Authors newly named, having denied that view to Created Being's, go on to appropriate it to God. I will only mention Aquinas' Words, which are short and plain 
* Ea quae ex voluntate sola dependent, vel quae in voluntate sola sunt, soli Deo sunt nota. Loco citato. .  
Those things which depend on the Will only, or which are in the Will only, are known to God alone.  
But a far greater Authority, viz. the Scripture, leaves no doubt for this, asserting in many places, that God reserves the Knowledge of those Secrets to himself, as an incommunicable Prerogative. I need refer but to a few. Jer. 179, 10.— I the Lord search the Heart, I try the Reins. 1 Chron. 29.17. 1 Sam. 16.7. Psal. 7.9. Acts 1.24, etc.  
The Sum of what hath appeared here, is, That the Intention of the Ordaining Bishop is not Knowable immediately or in itself, by any created intellect: Nor can it be seen in its Cause, by reason of that Dominion a Free Agent hath over its own Acts; which it may, or may not, exert, when it pleases.  
If it be asked me, Why God hath given any Faculty to any of his Creatures, which as to its particular tendencies, is impenetrable to the sharpest eye of Man or Angel; I might take up with resolving it solely into the Divine pleasure. However, it seems congruous to Reason, it should be so: Which thing I shall set forth in the Words of Balthasar Tellez 
* Ordo Naturalis praestantiaque intellectualium Crcaturarum postulabant, ne Secreta suorum cordium intuitive all is manifestarcntur, praeterquam Dco, qui solùm, ut testatur Scriptura, renum testis est, & cordis Scrutator ucrus. In Logic Disput. 14. Sect. 1. , and so shut up this particular.  
Natural Order, saith he, and the Excellency of intellectual Creatures did require that the Secrets of their Hearts should not be intuitively manifested to any besides God, who alone, as the Scripture attests, is the Witness of the Reins, and the true searcher of the Heart.  
2. As I have shown that the Bishop's Intention cannot be known in itself by any besides himself; so, Sir, I now come to show that it cannot be known by any effects.  
§. 7. The Reason is, It is so merely and entirely an Act of the Will, that it is the Act of no other power; and consequently doth not of itself produce any Term or Effect without the Will; for which reason such Acts are called immanent both by Philosophers and School Divines. But it would be needless here to cite them. The Term or Effect then being shut up in the Will, it is no more discoverable than the Act itself, which you, without ground, suppose to be manifested by it; and so you have nothing to argue from in that case, as from a thing more known, to a thing less known, and therefore must remain uncertified of the Being of the Act, unless you can invent some other mean of discovery. The Will hath no such dependence upon, nor connexion with any natural cause in its acting, as that it must impress upon the Body any sensible marks of its motions, in which we may surely read when and what it acts; as alteration of Voice, change of Countenance, or any the like thing from which you pretend to make a judgement of it. Aquinas will tell you this, with the reason of it. 
* In actu appetitus intellectivi non requiritur aliqua transmutatio corporalis, quia bujusmodi appetitus non est virtus alicujus Organi, prim. secund. q 22. Ar. 3.   
No change in the Body necessarily attends an Act of the Will, because such an appetite is not the virtue of any [bodily] Organ.  
I add, if any motion should by accident result in the Body from the actual Will, as signs of joy, or sorrow, or shame, & c yet this can lead only to the discerning some affections of the Will, in general; but not any particular Act of it.  
Hence I conclude, you can never secure your notion of knowing the Bishop's Intention by observing his Action, etc. till you make the Will to be a material power, and immanent Actions to be transient; which yet is impossible to be done.  
Now because you assign no other way of knowing the Intention in particular, than making the  observations, I will take the freedom to deal a little more samiliarly with you about it.  
I will suppose here, that a Bishop doth with a laudable show of Gravity pronounce the Words, and do the exterior Action your Church requires to Ordination, and that hardly any Bishop comes short of that, who pretends to confer holy Orders; but when I have done, I remain ignorant how I may certainly conclude from such his performance, whether he thereby intent to confer Spiritual power, or to do as the Church doth; and therefore would learn that skill from you. Either inform me that there is an individual connexion between his doing the one, and intending the other, or tell me when, and in what circumstances, the connexion fails. The exterior Action is too dim, and indeed too uncertain a Glass to see this in.  
§. 8. May not a man do a thing materially good, and directly commanded by God, without intending the End God requires? What think you of some men's relieving the poor, from no higher a Motive than that of vain glory? Matt. 6.1. What think you of some men's frequent saying their prayers for the same low end? v. 5. Our blessed Saviour plainly intimates that others may mistake the Intention of such, and earnestly applaud them for righteous persons; and that God only, who sees in secret, can detect their carnal purposes and crooked wills. Did not Judas declare it his desire to have the Bag saved for the sake of the poor, when he meant it only for his own advantage? John 12.6. He spoke good words, and did a seemingly-kind action to our Lord, he said, Hail Master and kissed him, when he intended not to express any true affection but to betray him, Matth. 26.49. I forbear to multiply instances of this sort, these now given being sufficient to evince, that there is no necessary dependence between the exterior actions of men and their interior Intentions, and consequently it is no sure arguing from those to these.  
§. 9 For the Ordainer's Gesture, I think you bring it in to no great purpose. Do you fancy Judas laughed in our Saviour's face when he passed upon him that treacherous Ceremony? Or that the Pharisees fleared or made Mows, when they gave their Alms, or said their Prayers, in token of their acting for undue ends? Are there not Sinon's yet in the world? May not a serious face frequently disguise a dissembling heart? Were the outward appearance always the true Picture of the mind, Hypocrisy would upon the matter, be wholly divested of its Essence. In an Irony there is indeed (as it were) a natural discovery of the contrariety of the Mind to the Words spoken; but in formal Hypocrisy a studious concealment of the repugnance between the motions of the heart and the outward appearance.  
Were your Bishop's wont in an openly ludicrous or sportive manner to pronounce the Form and apply the Matter of Ordination, your observation of their Gesture might tend to your discerning that sometimes they were not in earnest, but still we want a mean to know when they intent aright. We have proved a grave outside will not assure us of this. But I think no Bishop in the world will do so childish an act, or expose himself to scorn or hatred, or danger by an apparent mock-Ordination, and so your observing of their Gesture will not so much as enable you to know when they intent not. I will put the Case further, may not a Bishop who actually intends to make a Priest, chance to smile at some odd sight when he is pronouncing the words— Accipe potestatem, etc. Or would any man in that case pronounce the Ordination a nullity? I think not. Pray tell us then in what manner you are guided to the knowledge of the Ordainer's Intention by your observation of his Gesture. I am afraid, when you explain yourself we shall have a sad story of it.  
Besides, there is a manifest insufficiency in your Rule of judgement, which is the Bishop's words, actions and gesture in Ordination; for after your way, you can only pretend to know whether or no he actually intends in the Administration of Orders: but supposing you could find that he doth not then so intent, your observation is worth nothing; For, 1. Your Church requires it not as necessary that he should then actually intent; if he do it virtually, it will answer the End it is required for, as is proved before 
* Part I. Sect. VII. . 2. Your observing his Action afterwards cannot surely lead you to an intrinsically contingent Act of his Will which passed a minute or two before the Action done. He may have intended for aught you know, before, (which is called the virtual Intention in the time of the Action) but whether he did or no, you cannot be certified by the subsequent Action, except you have a singular gift of discerning, not known to the rest of Mankind.  
If you have such a gift, and can communicate your skill of knowing the secrets of man's heart by observing his Words, Actions and Gestures, it may be of extraordinary use to the world. Many sorts of men might avoid great harms otherwise incident to them, by virtue of your instructions. Prince's would be secured from employing servants that meant not Faith and Secrecy when they promise them. Masters and Parents would at a notable rate inspect the minds of servants and children. And Mental Reservations would hereby become unprofitable, which would be a great loss somewhere. If you can in the manner aforesaid, judge of such a particular Act of the Will, you are sufficiently enabled to make all these and many more such discoveries.  
But alas! Your Notion is a mere dream, as I have showed by barely declaring, That the mere interior, elicit Acts of the Will (and our Intention is one of them) make not of themselves any such sensible impressions upon the Body, as that another can make thereby any sure judgement of them: and that they make no such impressions by accident as will reach that end.  
I have therefore forborn to confirm what I have said of the Nature of the Will and her Acts, by numerous Testimony, because I expect no Adversary here. However I will add a few words more to confront your method of Trial.  
§. 10. Your greatest Authors describe the Intention I speak of, by such Epithets as show they held it not to be knowable by your way. They call it mental 
(a) Intentio Mentalis. Aquin. par. 3. qu. 64. art. 8. , properly mental 
(b) Proprie mentalis, Cajetan in locum. , internal 
(c) Interna, Bellar. de Sacram. in Gen. l. 1. c. 27. , occult 
(d) Occulta, Medina in prim. second qu 112. art. 5. , etc.  
Now they would not have spoken thus, merely because the Intention is not knowable immediately, or in itself, if yet it had been knowable by any necessary connexion with some other thing we know by the Ministry of Sense or Experience; for they call That evident knowledge which is so collected. But they call it properly Mental, Occult, etc. because it is not so connected with any other thing which may surely lead us to it. I shall illustrate this by an instance, when outward Actions are done immediately or proximately by the lower executive powers, upon the command (as I may say) and motion of the Will, (which are therefore called imperate) such Actions are called the actions of the Will, or voluntary actions: and yet no wise man will call these Occult or properly Mental. For though the motion of the Will be secret in itself, yet we have now some sensible effect so dependent upon and connexed with it, that all that are not strangers to the Ordinary course of Nature, may be assured of the presence of the Will in such Actions. I must grant, Sir, your writing an Answer to my Argument to be a voluntary action, and that your purpose to write it was not visible in itself; yet it is sufficiently made so by your doing it. And on this score your Will or purpose to write it ought to be called an open or exterior, not an interior or hidden purpose. But then if we seek after the particular End you intended in writing it, we shall not be able to find the secret. Whether you thereby intended to honour God by vindicating a supposed Truth of his, which I had assaulted; or to please yourself by baffling your obscure neighbour, or to gain some reputation (or other advantage) with your party by a dextrous defence of your Cause, is, and must be, a secret to all besides yourself; nor would the best observation made of your Action and Gestures, while you was at work, have ascertained the Spectators of your Intention.  
So then your purpose to answer me is manifest by what I see; but your intent in doing it I must remain uncertain of, for want of a sure ground to argue from, to the knowledge of it.  
Well. That concerned in our Question is the Intention of the End, etc. which effects nothing without the Will, from whence we may derive any certainty of it, and therefore it is truly called inward and hidden, and mental by your Authors last cited; and consequently the Ordainer's Intention is supposed by them (and many others that speak the same language) not to be discoverable by your external observation.  
§. 11. I add, If it be God's prerogative to search the Heart, your Notion of discerning the Intention wants foundation, in as much as That doth not only exclude Man from the intuitive, but also from the discursive Knowledge of it. For if it might surely be known this way, than Men were also Searchers of the Heart. On that supposition, the Thing is not denied to Men, but only the Mode of it. But if the Manner of Knowing made all the difference here, Why should the Knowledge of the Heart be more eminently ascribed to God, than the Knowledge of any thing else, since he knows all things alike, and the same way, viz. by his own Essence? I conclude then the meaning of the Attribution to be this, That God hath reserved the inspection of the Heart to his own eye, having by the Spirituality of its Nature, so shut it up from others, that the Agent himself cannot in some cases assure another of the Being of its particular Acts. And the Prelate's Intention (as hath been often said) is one of these. Hence your ablest Writers speaking of this Act, do not only say, it may be hid, but that it is always so. Take a taste of such their language.  
The Intention of the Minister is always hid from us, without which we cannot know there is a Sacrament, saith Medina 
* Semper Intentio Ministri est nobis occulta, sine quâ Sacramentum non constat. in prim secund. qu. 112. art. 5. . And again he saith in the same Article,  
They that are present [at Baptism] cannot determine whether the Minister Intent to do as the Church doth 
| Qui intersunt non possunt flatuere an Minister habuerit Intentionem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia. .  
Now, Sir, what becomes of your pretended Knowledge of the Intention, by observing the Action, Words, and Gesture of the Minister? Tell us how You therein see the lively Effigies of it, when it is not visible to other-Men.  
Man may indeed guests at, and fancy things, but none in the World are so Eagle-eyed, as to see That in any Effects. D. Soto's eyes were in his Head, and he had occasion to make a narrow search for this Thing, and after all, he affirms by a Rhetorical Question, that no man could surely find it 
* Quis potest certior omnino fieri, quod ille qui haptizat, habeat Intentionem Baptizandi. De Natura & Gratia, lib. 3. c. 13. .  
Who can be fully certified that he who Baptizeth hath an Intention to Baptise?  
Thus have I said enough (and I fear far too much) to evince, That the Intention of the Ordaining Bishop cannot be known by Reason, as being evident neither in itself, nor in any Effects.   

SECT. V The Intention is not knowable by Authority, whether Divine or Humane.  
SEcondly, I shall prove the said Intention cannot be known by Authority, in this manner,  
§. 1. It cannot be known either by any general Revelation made by God, nor by the Authoritative Testimony of Men: Ergo, It cannot be known by Authority.  
I mention not Good Angels here, because, 1. The Secrets of man's Heart, as appeared before, is locked up from them. 2. Were they privy to them, yet we have no Ordinary Observable Commerce with them. 3. Nor have Rules to discern their true Declarations of Fact from Satanical Delusions.  
I therefore made the Testimony of God and Men to be a sufficient Partition of Authority in the present case.  
I shall now make good both Parts of the Antecedent, and then the Consequent will stand firm.  
§. 2. 1. It is not knowable by any Revelation of God. For if we read Scripture from beginning to end, we shall find neither Prophecy to foretell, nor Promise to assure, That all the Roman Bishops in general, nor this or that in particular, throughout the several Centuries from the Apostles days, nor in any one of them, shall in their Ordinations intent the end of their Institution, or to do therein as the Church doth. Nor doth the Scripture furnish with any Rule, by which we may certainly judge when they so intent, and when they do not.  
Tradition is also silent here; nor is it, whatever other uses it may serve to, pretended to prefent us with such Notices. Wherefore I conclude, We cannot attain the Knowledge of the Bishop's Intention by Revelation.  
§. 3. 2. We have for This no such Humane Testimony, as may beget that certain Knowledge of it, which is properly called Moral Certainty. (And what is below this, excludes not rational fear, and therefore is but abusively called certain Knowledge.)  
To make this good to full satisfaction, 1. I shall reckon up the several things required to found the said Moral Certainty: And withal show what-like Assent they breed. 2. I shall manifest that those requisites do not concur in our case of the Intention, and that therefore we cannot know it with the foresaid Knowledge; The House cannot be strong, where the Foundation is weak.  
§. 4. To Moral Certainty it is required,  
(1.) That the Objects of it be Sensible Objects; and such as are obvious to the Observers; Things so notable or Remarkable, that if some Men should chance to make false reports of them, others may, or might have contradicted them.  
I note it here as a Thing ordained by the Divine Wisdom, to preserve us from Impostures, that Men are (as it were) naturally bend to detect the Errors of others, and to expose such as they observe to advance a Fiction for true Fact. A secret pleasure attends this work, and a Reputation follows it; and sometimes an uncharitable Temper promotes it. And consequently insensible notable Objects, the misreports of some will be blasted, by the contrary affirmation of others, at least so far, that they shall not gain the Authority of an Universal, uncontrolled Testimony.  
§. 5. (2.) That a competent number of Persons of known Sense and Probity, openly and constantly declare, that they have a Physical Certainty of such Objects; that is, that they saw such Sights with their own eyes, or heard such Words or Sounds with their own ears.  
Nothing less can be of Weight and Strength to persuade Men to entertain a prudent Belief of what the first Reporters say, and to set on foot a Tradition of it to Posterity.  
§. 6. (3.) That no Advantage can be well thought to accrue to the Reporters, by imposing upon others Falsehood instead of Truth.  
Every Eye sees what vast power Secular Ends have, to deprave the Heart and Tongue of frail Man; and therefore when it may be reasonably supposed, that Persons may say this or that in a subserviency to such Ends, discreet Men cannot entirely credit them.  
§. 7. (4.) That none qualified, as I have supposed the first Reporters to be, oppose their Experiences in Contradiction of them.  
Were there such Opposers, it would forbid all Certainty. For the Eyes and Ears of one Man may be as good, and aught to be regarded as much as the Eyes and Ears of another; provided the Object be Evident and Obvious, and the Witnesses alike credible on both sides.  
§. 8. Where these Requisites meet together, I take their Testimony to be a Virtual Communication of their Sensations to Others. We do, upon the Matter, see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and cannot reasonably fear, that the Matter should be otherwise, than it is represented to us. Though That was physically evident to the Spectators, etc. which is only Morally so to me; that is, though they had the assurance of an Object by Eyesight, and I only by Hear say, yet my Hear say may be so encircled with solid and convincing Circumstances, that I can no more question the Truth of what I hear, than I can of what I see. Ex. gr. When our Seamen or Merchants are failing, first time, for Amsterdam in Haul land; they are no lefs sure beforehand, that there is such a City, than they are when they arrive there. This certainty is expressed by Medina thus 
* Quod certum csi Moraliter, absque aliqua baesitatione potest jur amcuto confirmari. in prim. secund. qu. 112. art. 5. ,  
That which is Morally certain, a Man may swear to without Haesitation.  
His notion, I confess, seems somewhat uncouth, but it amounts to a full description of the Nature of properly-Moral Certainty, as it is exclusive of all Fear, lest Things should be otherwise in the Understanding, than they are in themselves. The Author means the same thing, (and no more) by the Words now cited, that he fets forth in these Words 
‖ Certitudo moralis omncm excludit dubitationem, convincit & necessitat intelleclum. Nemo enim sanae mentis potest regare quod Roma sit. bidem. ,  
Moral Certainty shuts out all doubt, it convinces and necessitates the Understanding to assent. For no Man in his Wits can deny, that there is such a place as Rome.  
Melchior Canus, speaking of Things so attested, comes up to the same height 
* Haec non modo negare, sed in his otiam addubitare stultissimum est. Le Locis Theolog li. 11. c 4. ,  
It is a most foolish thing, not only to deny these things, but even to doubt of them.  
It reaches so near to the Certainty of Sense, that Suarez advanceth such an attestation to a kind of Evidence 
‖ Humana quaedam evidentia. De Trip. virt. Theol. Disp. 10. Sect 2. .  
Having thus recounted the Pillars that bear up Moral Certainty, and also shown the weight of the Assent, that rests upon them, I shall now set forth by way of Comparison, that the pretended Knowledge of the Intention hath no such Firmament to support it.  
§. 9 (1.) It is not a Sensible Object, but a Spiritual or immaterial Act, shut up in a Faculty, which (as we have seen already 
* Part 11. Sect. 4. ) is inaccessible to the eyes of Men and Angles.  
§. 10. (2.) And consequently, as no creature can see it but the single Agent himself, so none is capable of contradicting his Relation of it, if it should be (as it may be) in itself false. So then a grand Rule of Trial most conducible to Moral assurance, is wanting on this score, and then what a rational stress can be laid on such Testimony?  
§. 11. (3.) Were the Object of itself liable to common observation, yet one witness is not sufficient to challenge our Credence.  
God himself was pleased in the Old Testament 
* Deut 19.5.  to intimate, that a single witness was less credible than many, and not to be trusted in matters of moment; and our Blessed Saviour hath repeated it in the New 
‖ Matth. 18.16. ;— That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be est ablished. From whence we may estimate how slender a satisfaction the Bishop's word would give in that great concern, if he should say, I intended to do as the Church doth, in my Ordaining such a person.  
§. 12. (4.) As there can be no more but a single witness in the Case, so he may reasonably be suspected to affirm on his own behalf, or for his own Interests: and if so (which will appear shortly) it will much lessen the value of his Testimony. With a respect to This our Blessed Saviour said 
* John 5.31. , If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.  
Gagneius' Gloss upon the Text may both illustrate and accommodate it to my Case, 
‖ loquitur ut purus homo: hominis autem puri testimonium de se recipi non solct. in 8. cap. Johannis.  Jesus speaks as a mere man: and it is unusual to give credit to a mere man when he bears witness on his own behalf.  
§. 13. Now that any Bishop in the world may be a party concerned (and therefore an incompetent witness) in affirming he intended as the Church requires, will be easily made appear. If he be declared Anathema (as he is by the Trent Council) who denies the necessity of the Intention to the Sacraments, sure no light punishment would be allotted to that Bishop who should discover that he defeated his Ordinations of their Efficacy by omitting to intent as the Church requires. This crime is called Sacrilege by your Authors; and it must be such in a high degree according to your Hypothesis, it being beyond comparison, more heinous to rob men's souls of Sacramental Grace, than Churches of consecrated Cups or Patens. Excommunication may be well supposed to be inflicted upon the Criminal Bishop, which Censure is followed with suspension from Office and Benefit, and with the loss of the privileges of the Laws, as your Authors teach 
‖ See for this Card. Cajetan's Summuls. verb. Excom. .  
At best shame and reproach will attend such a discovery: on which account I find some of your Casuists  of advising the Ministers of the Sacraments to reveal the matter, when they have rendered them inessectual through their Not-intending or otherwise. For example, when a Priest hath given an invalid Absolution, he must be cautious of making it known 
* Nè si poenitens admoneatur, sequetur scandalum vel infamia. Suarez. tom. 4. par. 2. disp. 32. Sect. 6. , Left some scandal or infamy follow his revealing it to the Penitent.  
But on the contrary, he is obliged (say they) to make the defect known, when it may be done without any great harm to himself, and without scandal 
‖ quando sine gravi nocumento ipseus confessoris & sine seandalo seri potest. ibid. .  
But guilt is jealous of the harms sometimes subsequent to such discoveries; and since the offender will be judge, he will hardly think himself safe, save in a deep concealment of such his faults; and therefore will like those Authors best that furnish him with the best Evasions.  
§. 14. Thus have we found that the Bishop's confession of their Not-intending aright, may expose them to loss, or shame, or both; and sad experience tells us that many are more tender of their Riches and Reputation, than of their Conscience; and apt to sackisice Truth to their worldly welfare. And therefore when a Bishop is asked, how he intended in such an Ordination, none knows but such respects may prevail with him to make an untrue Answer. If he have wilfully offended in that point, we may expect he will cloak his malice with a Lie; if through gross carelessness, he may studiously conceal it: But suppose he hath done his duty, his telling us so cannot prove it, because it is but every way the same Answer they give, who have transgressed it.  
§. 15. The sum hereof is this, There is hardly any thing alike between the two Things I have now compared. There an object liable to the observation of many; not so here. There several Witnesses affirm, here is only singularis testis. There no personal interest makes the Testimony suspicious, here the single witness deposeth for himself.  
The Inference from hence is this, There a strong Assent is founded, here a weak one. There is certainty, here is none.  
§. 16. I add, I am persuaded that Roman Catholics seldom (if ever) actually have the slender security of the said single Testimony. For I never heard in my Converse with them, nor read in any of their Books, that they use to ask their Ministers, whether they Intent aright or no. They presume they do so, and rest in that good natured belief, without troubling them with such questions. But we are to consider, that a blind Persuasion and Intellectual certainty are far different things. That is incident to all sorts of Heretics, This to the Orthodox only.  
§. 17. Now, Sir, if I am not a partial judge in my own Cause, I have made it plain, that the Ordaining Prelate's Intention cannot be known either by Reason or Authority; (than which I find no other grounds of certain Knowledge.) Which was the thing I undertook to prove.   

SECT. VI Roman Catholics have but a bare Opinion to secure them of the point.  
§. 1. IT now remains, Sir, that I only leave the Roman Catholics that weak assent to the point, usually termed Opination. Had this been granted me at first, viz. That you hold your Priesthood considered in particular, by no other claim than that of bare Opinion, as Opinion is opposed to moral certain Knowledge; I had not taken the trouble of writing much, but gone on immediately to infer from that Grant the crazy estate of your Church. I shall briesly say upon What some of your great men found their Assent to the presence of the Ministers Intention, and then evince that their Foundation will bear up no more than bare Opinion.  
§. 2. 1. It is the Probity of the Ministers of the Sacraments they rely on, as a sufficient security that they intent aright. Soto shall declare this for himself and others 
*— Cum videmus homines probos uti forma & Materia Ecclesiae; credimus sanas etiam Christianâsque habere mentes dum Sacramenta ministrant, in 4. Sent. dist. 1. qu 5. art. 8. .  
When we see honest [sincere, virtuous] men use the matter and form of the Church, we also believe that they have sound and Christian minds while they administer the Sacraments.  
2. To show what a small weight this ground will bear, I will proceed by some degrees. But in the way hereunto I premise these things,  
§. 3. (1.) Your Authors agree That those may be true Ministers of the Sacraments who have neither Faith nor Probity: for which they give this reason, Sacraments have their Efficacy from the Divine Institutor, and therefore depend not for this, upon the Qualifications of the Minister, provided he perform what is required by the Institution. And I find them accursed by your Trent Council, who deny that a wicked Minister doth validly administer the Sacraments 
* Si quis dixerit Ministrum in peccato mortali existentem— non consicere aut confcrre Sacramentum, anathema sit. Ses. 7. Ca 11. .  
§. 4. (2.) I never found it in practice among you, to judge the Dispensing your Sacraments more or less valid for the greater or less Temperance, Continence, Devotion, etc. of your Ministers.  
§. 5. (3.) I then account it your great infelicity, if as the cited words intimate, you cannot be well satisfied that any Minister intends aright; whom you know not to be a good and sincere Man.  
Among the vast Numbers of your Clergy, (as it also happens to those of other Churches) there must be many irreligious and immoral men, not so Christianly qualified, as You and I could wish: And then according to the Rule laid down, How many Hosts consecrated by such, may be adored with doubting Minds; How many Absolutions given, whose Virtue may be rationally questioned, & c?  
§. 6. But enough of this. I will now try how firmly your security lies, even upon the conceived Probity, or Sincerity of your Ministers. I take the Argument to be this,  
Good men will not be wanting to their duty. Good Ministers will be sure to Intent as the Church requires.  
What I shall say to this Argument, is as follows,  
I confess, a good Conscience, or a Principle of Grace, is a very Operative thing, and excites to watchful diligence in duty, where it really is: But it is fit we should know, 1. In whom it is, before we conclude the Minister's Intention, or any other good Effects from it, in particular. 2. Whether that Effect necessarily follow from that Cause.  
§. 7. First, Let us inquire, how it can be known, where it surely is. For satisfaction in which Point, I shall lay this down as evident, That we know not any other Man's frame of mind, so well as himself knows it; as whether he sigh for his sins in secret, strive to mortify the unruly Motions of his Heart, values himself chief upon God's Mercy, through Christ, loves God above all things, and purposes to obey him without Reserve, etc.  
Having said this, I shall determine according to your own Doctrine, (for I am not concerned here to interpose my own judgement) how far your Ministers of the Sacraments are certain, that themselves are sincere Christians, or in a state of Grace: And then compare That with What others know of it.  
§. 8. (1.) Themselves cannot infallibly know this, without special Revelation, as your Trent-Council defines 
* Nullus scire vales certitudine Fidei, cui non potest subesse falsum, se gratiam Dei esse consecutum. Sess 6. Cap. 9 .  
No man can know with the infallible Certainty of Faith, that he hath obtained the Grace of God.  
§. 9 (2.) Roman Catholics cannot agree to allow any Man such a Certainty of it, as is equal to Moral Certainty, which excludes all rational Fear of being deceived. Aquinas saith 
‖ Homo non potest per certitudinem dijudicarc utrum ipse ha' eat Gratiam. prim. secund. qu. 112. Art 5. ,  
No man can judge certainly, whether he have Grace.  
And he proceeds to say, Men know this only by way of conjecture, 
Ibidem.  gained by some Signs or other: [Conjecturaliter per aliqua Signa.].  
Medina (upon the place) words it thus 
* Vir justus non potest habere certitudinem ●…ae gratiae, sed tantummodo conjecturalem, & quae non tran cendis limites Opinionis human●, quae habet semper formidinem adjunctam. , A just man can have no more than a conjectural certainty of his Grace, and such as transcends not the limits of Humane Opinion, which always hath Fear adjoined to it.  
§. 10. (3.) From the Knowledge you allow your Ministers to have of their own Sincerity and Grace, it will be easy to collect in what measure others are able to know their state, if the Rule of judgement, I premised, be remembered, viz.  
That every thinking man knows the affections and state of his own Heart, better than another man can do it.  
§. 11. If your Ministers then, who have experience of their own internal Acts, know not certainly whether they Fear and Love God above all things, (by which I now describe being in Grace). much less can others, who can view only outward Signs and appearances, but are strangers to the Root and Spring of them.  
§. 12. Supposing your Ministers had undeniably a certainty of their Grace, equal to a Moral Certainty, which admits no fear of the contrary; yet all besides themselves, for the Reason given, must fall short of that Assurance, and so take up with Unstable Opinion.  
§. 13. But since you will not agree to allow them to be so certain of it, others must still proportionably fall below them, and be content with a lean and languid Assent, which shakes and totters for want of Evidence.  
From what hath been thus set forth, I shall now destroy the Argument offered by the cited Author, in favour of your being satisfied, that your Ministers of the Sacraments duly intent in the Administration of them.  
§. 14. If Roman Catholics cannot be so much as Morally Certain of the Probity and Christian mindedness (to speak with the Author) of their Ministers, on which Qualifications they ground their confidence of their due Intending; (as I have proved they cannot) than they cannot be Morally certain of their so Intending. The building cannot be stronger than the foundation; nor the conclusion more evident than the premises.  
§. 15. Moreover: Your case is yet worse than this; For you are greater Strangers to the particular Mental Acts of your Ministers, than you are to the Frame and Habit of their Minds. For you may fairly guests at This, by observing a full course of their Outward Actions, but not near so well at these Acts. The Reason is, a good Man may omit a good act, or do an ill one, without the destruction of his good habit, which denominates him such. To accommodate this to our case, it is to be noted, That the Minister's Intention may be obstructed, not only by malice or contempt of Religion, or gross Negligence; but also by Natural inadvertence, or such accidental prevalent cares, or fears, or deep concerning Studies, as in gross, and (as I may say) swallow up the mind, or hale it from a duty in hand, elsewhither. In these latter Instances, there may chance to be a defect of the Intention, without a wicked Habit in the Minister: So than the Connexion between good Habits and such particular Acts is not certain, and therefore not to be depended on.  
§. 16. The result, as to our present concern, is this, 1. As it is but probable (as probable is opposed to morally certain) your Bishops have Christian minds, (remember I speak of them in particular) So is it but probable that in their Ordinations they intent as your Church requires, the Evidence of the latter depending on that of the former, according to the Argument I deal with. 2. It is not so probable that they so intent, as it is that they are Christianly affected, a good man being liable to omit a good Act he ought to perform, and this not destructive of his gracious Habit. Nothing is left for you, but lose Sand, instead of a pretended Rock, to build your certainty upon.  
Having largely examined the most plausible Plea, Roman Catholics have for their Security, that their Ministers intent as they ought, and disarmed it of its strength; I shall now, in way of surplusage, show how hopeless it is, for the end it was brought for, from the Context of the cited place.  
§. 17. For this end, I will repeat the cited passage, prefixing to it the foregoing Words.  
The Author had declared, that though the interior Intention be required to the Sacraments, yet when men see the exterior Actions done, they may quiet their minds with a persuasion, that the Ministers intent as the Church requires them: And seeing an Objection stare him in the Face, He sets himself to Answer it. The Objection is this, 
* Isla non est evidens certitudo.   
That certainty [or persuasion] is no Evident certainty.  
He returns this Answer to it,  
I ingenuously confess it; 
Fatemur equidem ingenue: sed nec requiritur evidens, sed, illa satis est ad Conscientiae quietem: quoviam neque scmper certitudinem ●abemu● an Ministri sint vere Sacerdotes. Sed cum videmus homives probos uti, etc.  nor is an Evident Certainty required; but That is sufficient to quiet the Conscience: because we are not always certain that the Ministers are true Priests. But when we see honest men use the Matter and Form of the Church, We believe that they have found and Christian minds, while they administer the Sacraments.  
Behold, here a Learned man is sorely puzzled, through the infirmity of his cause. He would have men satisfied of the validity of their Sacraments, by some assurance of the Minister's Intending as he ought to do. But see how he is forced to cook the matter.  
§. 18. (1.) He grants there is no Evident Certainty of the Thing: And consequently that it is not liable to the view of the Understanding.  
§. 19 To make it as intelligible as I can, I will give a short account of the meaning of the Terms, Evidence and Certainty. And this I will do (according to the method I have used) from one of your Authors. Peter Hurtad de Mendoza defines both of them 
‖ Evidentia est claritu sive perspicuitas qua intellectus quasi videt Objecta. :  
Evidence is that clearness or perspicuity, by which the Understanding doth as it were see Objects.  
Certainty is a firm determination and adhesion of the Understanding to Truth as Truth. 
Certitudo est firm a determinatio adh●esioque intellectus ad verum ut verum est. Disp. 10. Sect. 3. de Demonst.   
The Author then having granted that there is no Evident Certainty of the Intention, doth in effect grant, that the Understanding cannot view it for want of light, nor embrace it as a Thing in Being. Evidence doth indeed Naturally cause certainty. As I can no longer question the Being of what I see plainly with my bodily eyes, so neither can I, what I see with those of my mind. But no Natural Beams lighten this Object; it is confessed to lie in darkness.  
§. 20. (2.) He saith, such certainty is not necessary, in order to the Quiet of the Conscience. But, I say, something is necessary to that End, because Anxiety would oppress the Soul, were it left to fluctuate about the weighty matters of Religion, such as the Truth of our Sacraments are acknowledged to be. And it hath been shown that the Truth of these cannot be known, unless the Minister's Intention be so too. Well: Evident certainty is given away; but what brings the Author to supply it? Why, he lays no claim to that obsoure Certainty that is founded on Authority. He neither saith, There is the infallible Testimony of God for the Thing, nor yet the credible Testimony of men: Which silence is a tacit confession, he had no such thing to plead, it being then his Province to say all he could to secure the Soul in that Point.  
§. 21. (3.) He gives this most sorry Reason, why it was not necessary so to know the Intention in Baptism, (of which he was speaking) viz. because, saith he, we are not always certain that our Ministers are true Priests.  
The relation of these Words to the former, seems to make the whole sound but this, viz. Baptism fares no worse than Ordination; let us hope well of both, but we are certain of neither. When he cannot cure the malady, he gives them Narcoticks to still and stun the Spirits, that they may be less sensible of their pain. Let us not torment ourselves but believe the best, is the effect of his words, to my understanding.  
§. 22. Yet he minces the matter. We are not always certain, etc. saith he. Then never certain, say I, upon the account of the Intention: (which he purposely treats of in that Article.) But are there not greater hopes when moral men Administer? Yes. But I have proved there is no certainty.  
§. 23. But because of some inconveniences which that distinction of good and bad Ministers, as applied before, may chance to breed among Roman Catholics, I will now suppose that by the words, Good Men 
* Homines probos. , the Author meant to describe all their Ministers promiscuously However not daring to trust this Notion; I have considered them as implying the forenamed distinction. I would not impose a meaning upon any man's words, but take his own, if I knew it. In this method I cannot miss his Sense: it must be here or there.  
§. 24. Well, I construe the words thus, when we see any Minister do the Sacramental Actions, we believe he hath a Christian mind and duly Intends. Now I proceed to say, it hath already appeared that there is neither Evidence nor Authority claimed by the Author to secure the Conscience in this matter: And therefore I conclude his Credimus [We believe] only denotes the judgement of Charity, which he conceives sufficient to stay and settle the mind.  
§. 25. Sir, I will freely grant you this judgement of Charity for your Ministers, and consequently for their intending aright. For where there are not manifest tokens of Vice, we are to account every man Virtuous; and for things that look doubtful, we are rather to interpret them in the more favourable sense, when there is an Obligation upon us to pass our judgement. But this tye of making a charitable judgement is too weak a stay for Conscience in the great concerns of Religion, such as the Minister's Intention, on which you make your Baptism, the Consecration of the Eucharist, etc. depend. This will appear by considering these two things,  
§. 26. (1.) The judgement of Charity always supposes the Object Uncertain; or to speak more properly, the Understanding Uncertain. For what needs Charity come into the Scale, if Evidence hath weighed it down beforehand? What needs the Will come into the work, but that the Understanding is at a loss?  
§. 27. (2.) The Soul is not a jot nearer Truth by this judgement of Charity. The pious affection of the Will is indeed exercised, but it makes not the Act of the Understanding more certain. Truth is the Object of the Intellect alone, and therefore certainty is not at all taken from the Will, but from the Evidence of the Object, or from the motive to Faith.  
§. 28. I forbear to add, That the Understanding may be easily, and is often exposed to the danger of falsehood by the charitable inclination of the Will; and that ignorance may contribute much to the false quiet of the mind. The will hath nothing to do with the Understanding (that I know of) in order to Knowledge, but barely to stir it up to act. When that is done, it must judge for itself, and hath Rules of its own to examine things by; but the bent or bias of the Will is none of them. And he that makes himself (as I may so say) certain without or beyond Rational Motives, is but blindly persuaded or pertinacious.  
I have said enough, if not too much, to convince That the judgement of Charity concerning the Intention, amounts not to an intellectual certainty of it. Which is the only thing I was concerned to make out, in this place.  
§. 29. Now since neither Reason nor Authority will ascertain the Intention, and since the Judgement of Charity falls short of the mark, I may, I hope, without presumption conclude that my Proposition is verified, viz.  
That the Intention of the [Ordaining] Bishop is a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no in Ordination.  
And then the premises being true, the conclusion is so too, viz.  
The Church of Rome requires a condition to Ordination which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no.  
I confess I have extended my proof to a far greater Latitude (as I have done some other things in these Papers) than any thing you have offered, exacted from me: but I had rather be accused of being over than short. Besides, I had a mind to prevent the often re-hearing of the Cause, to which several little new Suggestions might give occasion, by a more particular sifting of it. I had also a respect to some others, who had never seen the Subject set in a full light. But after all, I am sensible I have done something more than needed.  
§. 30. I have indeed considered the Proposition only under the limitation before expressed, excepting the Ordaining Bishops out of no man living knows. Who may therefore pretend to know their own Intention, and by consequence that there are true Priests among you. But if an Interpretation I gave you of my Proposition at Pn. had not (without Reason) been displeasing to you, what I have already done would have left your Bishops unsecured of your Priesthood, as well as all the rest of your Communion.  
However I shall with little ado cure that defect by offering the same thing in such words, as will not, I think, be evaded.   

SECT. VII. The Ordaining Bishops not certain whether. there be true Priests in the Roman Church.  
HAving already proved, That all Roman Catholics, except the Ordaining Bishops, are Uncertain whether the said Bishops Intent aright in their particular Ordinations, and consequently as uncertain whether they make any true Priests, I come now to prove That the Ordaining Bishops (so called) are uncertain whether or no they Intent with such an Intention as is available or effectual to Ordination.  
In order hereunto I will let my first Syllogism stand as before 
* Part I. Sect. l. . The minor Proposition of it, which only could regularly be denied, is this, The Roman Church requires a condition to Ordination which no man living knows whether or no it be fulfilled.  
To wrap up the Bishops in the same uncertainty with the rest, I prove it thus,  
The Intention of a person who is a true Bishop is a Condition which no man living knows, the Ordainers themselves not excepted, whether it be fulfilled in Ordination.  
But the Roman Church requires the Intention of a person who is a true Bishop to Ordination. Ergo,  
The Roman Church requires a condition to Ordination, which no man living knows, the Ordainers themselves not excepted, whether it be fulfilled in Ordination.  
The minor is clear, for it is not every man's using the Matter and Form of the Church, and intending to do as the Church doth, (although you say, This may suffice to Baptism) that you hold to be sufficient to ordination. You judge not only Laymen but simple Priests uncapable of doing that work, as the Curse of your Trent-Council makes appear 
* Si quis dixcrit Episcopos non esse Presbyteris superiores, vel non babete potestatem Confirmandi & Ordinandi, vel cam quam habent illis cum Presbyteris communem esse, Auathema sit. Sess. 23. Can. 7. .  
If any one shall say, That Bishops are not Superior to Priests, or have not the power of Confirming and Ordaining, or that the power they have is common to them with Priests, let him be Anathema.  
The Ordainer than must of Necessity be a Bishop. This for the Minor.  
If there be any difficulty in the matter, it respects the Major: But I am now to show there is none at all. This than I lay down as evident, except the Ordainer know that he is in Truth what he is called, viz. a Bishop, he knows not that his Intention is such as operates in, and is effectual to Ordination, nor consequently that he makes a true Priest. My Medium, you know, points directly at this, and the connexion is unquestionable, according to yourselves. Which being said, it only remains that I make out,  
That none of your Bishops know that they are true Bishops. I do it thus,  
No Bishops that are Uncertain, whether or no they are true Priests, know that they are true Bishops.  
But all the Roman Bishops are uncertain, whether or no they are true Priests. Ergo,  
No Roman Bishops know that they are true Bishops.  
To verify the Major, I need but say, 1. Your Church holds, That no man can be a Bishop, who is not first a Priest. A taste of Authority may satisfy for this.  
If any one (faith Suarez 
* Si quis ita consecrcetur Episcopus per saltum ut Sacerdotii Ordinem praetermittat, eum non solum mancre suspensum, verum etiam non maners conjecratum: quia character Episcopalis, si quis est. essentialiter requirit charactarem Sacerdosalem. Suarez. Tom. 5. Disp 31. §. 53. ) should of a Deacon be made Bishop without first taking Priests Orders, he doth not only remain suspended, but Vnconsecrated: because the Episcopal Character, if there be any such, Essenitally requires the Priestly Character.  
D. Soto delivers the matter in short 
‖ Episcopatus dependet à Sacerdotio, nam conjecratio Episcopi antequam sit Sacerdos, non valeret. De just, & jure, li. 10. qu 1. art. 2. .  
The Episcopate depends on the Priesthood; for the making a man Bishop before he is made Priest, would be of no avail.  
The Reason hereof, is, No man can give that which he hath not himself; the Proeminent power the Bishop hath, was especially given him for Constituting Priests for the Service of the Church; and therefore it is necessary, that he have what he confers.  
The power of the Keys is founded in the Priestly Character, saith Gab. Biel 
* Potestas clavium fundatur in charactere Sacerdotali. Li. 4. Dist. 19 qu. 1. art. 1. .  
Though your lessor Orders may be jumped over, I am sure you will not say, This can; Which if he want, he hath the Name of Bishop, and no more. This for the Dependence of the two Orders.  
2. As your Ordainers know not whether they had Priestly Orders, so they cannot know, for that Reason, whether they had Episcopal Orders. The Uncertainty of the former necessarily destroys all certainty of the latter. Thus much for the Major.  
As for the Minor Proposition, it is largely proved beforehand, viz. That all Roman Bishops are Uncertain, whether or no they be true Priests, for want of knowing their Ordainer's Intention.  
Now the Premises being safe, the Conclusion is set beyond all hazard, viz. No Roman Bishops know that they are true Bishops: And consequently they know not that their Intending is available to Ordination.  
But supposing them to know that they were truly made Priests, (which yet, as appears, they neither do, nor can know) yet they cannot know that they are true Bishops, for the same Reason that Priests cannot know that they are true Priests, viz. Their Ignorance of their Consecrator's Intention. Bishops are as far from inspecting the Hearts of their Consecrators, as Priests are from inspecting the Hearts of the Bishops. There is Parity of Reason on both sides.  
I will advance one other Medium, to prove your Bishops to be Uncertain of their Orders. I take my Argument from their Notknowing that they were indeed Baptised. And I will take your Simple Priests along with them for Company. In Form it runs thus,  
No Bishops or Priests, that are uncertain whether or on they were truly Baptised, know whether or no they be [respectively] true Bishops or Priests.  
But all Roman Bishops and Priests are Uncertain, whether or no they were truly Baptised. Ergo,  
No Roman Bishops or Priests know whether they be true Bishops or Priests.  
The Major Proposition must be granted, if these two Things appear, 

(1.) That there is a Necessary Dependence of Holy Orders upon Baptism.  
(2.) That there is between them a Dependence of Knowledge, as well as Being. What shines not of itself, I shall, after my wont, prove from your own Authority.    
For the First. Your Angelical Doctor hath long ago acquainted us 
* Qui characterem baptismalem non habet, wullum aliud Sacramentum recipere poiesi. Addit. ad tertiam partem. qu. 34. art. 3.   
That he is not capable of receiving any other Sacrament, who hath not the Baptismal Character.  
And he doth not only say this in general, which yet had been sufficient, but he applies it to our particular 
‖ Baptismia est janua Sacramentorum, ergo cum Ordo sit quoddam Sacramentum praesupponit Baptismum. Ibidem.   
Baptism is the Gate of the Sacraments, and therefore since Order is a certain Sacrament, it presupposes Baptism.  
He goes on to certify us 
* Talis si promoveatur ad Sacerdotium, non est Sacerdos, nec conficere potest, nec absolvere, etc. ibidem. , That if any Unbaptised person be promoted to the Priesthood, he is no Priest, nor can he either consecrate, or absolve, etc.  
To be short, Your Canon teacheth 
| In Decret. li. 3. ti. 43. cap. 1.3. de Presbyt. non' Baptizat. , That they who are promoted to Orders, unbaptised, shall be Baptised and Re-ordained.  
This I have said, is enough to evince the necessary dependence Orders have upon Baptism, which is the Gate through which your other Sacraments enter; and which being shut, they are kept forth.  
For the Second, I need add nothing to enlighten it: For the abovesaid dependence being acknowledged, no man hath power to deny, That he who is uncertain that he was Baptised, must be so that he was Ordained. This for the proof of the Major.  
The Minor is this, All Roman Bishops and Priests are Uncertain whether or no they were truly Baptised. But this is proved beforehand, by those Arguments that convinced, that the Minister's Intention is not Knowable by any besides himself.  
Now the Premises being stead fast, the conclusion stands most firm, viz. No Roman Bishops or Priests know whether they be true Bishops or Priests.  
I shall not be reckoned to have made superfluous proof of this Point, if the Reader shall consider the Fruit it yields, the several Mediums being so many Hammers to break to pieces the pretended Certainty of the Roman Priesthood. If it be born in mind, that the Intention is a Mental contingent Act, which the Agent may, or may not do, at his pleasure; and that none can discover, whether he exert that Act, or not, it will be very obvious here to view the several Grounds of the Uncertainty of their Priesthood. If the Bishop was not Baptised with due Intention, he cannot Ordain. If he was not so made Priest, he cannot Ordain, if he was not so consecrated, he cannot Ordain. And it plainly appears that himself cannot be certain of any of these, and therefore cannot be certain he makes a Priest, because all these go to qualify him for that Work. And the Priest, besides these insuperable uncertainties, common to the Bishop with him, is vexed with one more as bad as the rest. He knows not that the Bishop (if he should chance to be capable of doing it) intended to communicate Spiritual Power to him.  
So that there are three hazards to allay the Bishop's confidence of his making Priests, and a fourth more to allay That of the Priest.  
But this may be accounted a small thing in comparison of what follows. The Consecrator of our present Bishop was liable to the same three Uncertainties, and these are chargeable, in their Effects, upon our Bishop. If his Ordainer and Consecrator were not truly Baptised, made Priest, and Bishop, (and God only knows that) They had no Faculty to Ordain or Consecrate, and then our Bishop hath but an empty Name. And the fourth comes in too, he knows not what his Consecrator Intended.  
So then our Bishop and his Consecrator, with respect to their Knowledge, whether they ordain Priests, are necessarily liable to Six Contingencies, any of which falling out will Un bishop him, and therefore make void his Ordinations.  
Think then how vastly these Contingences will multiply from the Apostles times to ours, and that our present Bishop is so far chargeable with any one of the said Omissions of Intention, that he hath lost his Power and Office, if any such hath happened in a direct descent.  
According to the Suggestions of common Reason, your Mass-books, and other Books contain Suppositions, That there may be defect of due Intention: And Priesthood comes down no other way but by a claim of Succession; Intention is necessary to hold the links together, and is concerned in the manifold particulars specified; and if any of the links be broken all falls to pieces; No Bishop or Priest afterwards in that particular Line to the world's end.  
Now I refer it to every inquisitive man, whether the ground be not too slippery for Certainty to stand on, amidst the manifold variety of those contingencies 'forementioned.  
Though I allowed you, for Argument sake, the judgement of Charity for all your Bishops of this time, yet supposing they mean never so honestly in their Acts, it appears now That is not sufficient to decide the question; for their Intention may be void and ineffectual, though not through want of Will, yet for want of Power. Their Baptizers or Ordainers may have neglected them, and These upon this score are made useless to others. The fault may have been committed several Ages ago, which yet the poor Gentlemen can neither know nor remedy. What room then is there for certainty in this thick contexture of hazards?  
We shall find that even the dark judgement of Charity will run very low, if we follow the Ordainers up into some distant Ages, wherein Ignorance and Vice strove, as it were, for mastery in the Roman Church. What say you of the 9th. and 10th. Ages, and the four next following, wherein Learning was generally fallen asleep in the Western Europe, and wickedness as much awake in it? If Historians of those times may be credited (as they must, or farewel Authority) great breaches might very probably be made in the Sucession of Bishops in many Sees; for such as are blind and careless of their own Souls will hardly be sure to look out sharp, and be regardful of the Salvation of others, in their Administrations.  
It ought to be observed, With what ease and speed Nullities may be diffused and multiplied. Let us put a fair case, Suppose a Bishop, within whose Diocese the greatest University of a Nation is, should out of unbelief, contempt of Religion, supine carelessness, or from any other cause, omit to Intent as is required, in his frequent Ordinations of the Collegians: it would follow that the Bishops taken out of these Priests, though never so good men and careful to Intent as they ought, must yet act ineffectually, and fill many places with empty names, instead of power. The more such, so much the worse; and the longer they live, the bigger is the mischief. And who can secure us against this Supposition? Now considering that Nullities may have at any time thus spread, (I speak still with a Relation to your doctrine) and that the farther they go, they grow far more numerous, what can a thoughtful man fin amidst all this for the certainty of the Roman Priesthood!  
If it be said, No man knows on the other hand, that they fail to Intent. I answer, It is not enough to Certainty not to know that they fail, we are to know that they fail not. Knowledge stands not in Negatives, it is Positives that stay the Understanding.  
Give a positive Reason why they must hit the mark, and I shall be sure they cannot miss it. But none we have found can do this.  
The result is, Not one of the Roman Church, except the Ordaining Bishops, can know the Intention of the Ordainers. They know it not either in itself, or in its Cause, or by any Effects. They are not assured of it either by Divine Revelation, or by sufficient Humane Authority. And therefore they have no true certainty of their Priesthood which depends upon it. They have not (to use your own terms) either a Metaphysical, or Mathematical, or yet a Moral certainty of it. They have not (to speak my own language) either Divine or Theological or yet Moral certainty that any one of all the reputed Clergy of the Roman Church is a true Priest.  
For the Ordaining Bishops, They may indeed know whether themselves Intent, but know not whether there be any force or virtue in their Intention for making Priests, for want of knowing the Intention of the whole Succession of their Baptizers, Ordainers and Consecrators. So that not one Soul in the Church of Rome hath any true certainty of the matter.  
You see I have laid the weight of what hath been said, on these two grounds: 1. That a Mental interior Intention is required to the very Being of your Sacraments, which hath been shown from your own Authors. 2. That Holy Orders is a Sacrament, and so as much depends upon the Intention, as any other of them. This I have indeed taken all along for granted; but shall now prove it from the Council of Trent 
* Dubitare nemo potest Ordinem esse vere & proprie unum ex septem Sanctae Ecclesiae Sacra mentis Sess. 23. cap. 7. .  
None ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven Sacraments of the Holy Church.  
These Two (I say) are your own Principles, and from them I have concluded your Uncertainty of your Priesthood considered in particular, and so have made good my word.  
It now remains that in the next Section I draw from hence such Consequences or Consectaries as will set the feeble estate of the Roman Church in so full a Light, that all that wink not, must needs see it.   

SECT. VIII. Consequences drawn from the Uncertainty of the Roman Priesthood: and the feeble condition of that Church, issuing from thence, shown.  
§. 1. IF no Roman Catholic can be certain that there is any one true Priest in particular, in their Church, This necessarily follows in the general, That each of them must be uncertain whether he have the benefit of any one Sacrament which depends upon the Priestly character. Now you teach that all your Sacraments do so depend, except Baptism and Matrimony: So then five of the seven are unavoidably uncertain to each of you, by immediate inference from the Uncertainty of your Priesthood.  
§. 2. Moreover, You are uncertain upon the same ground, viz. your ignorance of the Minister's Intention, of having the two other, whether administered by Priests who are the ordinary Ministers of them, or by others whom necessity makes such in the Priest's absence.  
Christ surely instituted his Sacraments for great Spiritual Ends, which are as surely attained by the worthy partakers of them. How deplorable then is the estate of the Roman Church, since not one of its Members knows that in his whole life time he receives any One Sacrament! this in general.  
§. 3. I will now infer more particularly, from the Virtue of the Premises already laid down and proved;  
1. Not one Member of your Church can without special Revelation (which is excepted in the State of our Question) be ascertained he had the Blessing of Christian Baptism, which you hold to be a Sacrament necessary to all; and without which your Trent Council saith, There is no Salvation 
* Siquis dixcrit Baptismum non esse necessarium ad salutem. Anathema sit. Sess. 7. c. 5.   
§. 4. I know the Canon is generally interpreted thus, An adult is Savable by Contrition and the desire of Baptism, if the Minister chance to have rob him of it by Not intending. But behold the miseries he is yet liable to, notwithstanding that: (1.) You cannot plead that such a one is capable of any Office purely relating to the Service of God's Church, (2.) nor that he is capable of the Benefits of any other Sacrament. Sacraments, as I said, were appointed by Christ for great Blessings to his people, as being not only signs, but also instrumental causes of the Grace they signify: and therefore the next to the misery of wanting them, it is most lamentable to be Uncertain whether or no a man indeed has them; which is apparently the Case of all Roman Catholics.  
§. 5. But if an Infant die defrauded of the Baptizer's Intention, (and none can be assured that any particular one is not) according to the current of your doctrine he is eternally shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven; in as much as he is not capable of making up the defect by Contrition and desire of Baptism. If there be no assurance had of the Baptizer's Intention, there can be none had of the Child's Salvation, according to your doctrine. Which must make the Funerals of poor Babes far more bitter to their Christian Parents, and Friends, than they would be, had they just grounds of security for their Reigning with Christ in Glory.  
§. 6. 2. No Roman Catholic is sure that after a Confession of sins made to his Priest, he gains from him a true Sacramental Absolution.  
As Baptism is, with you, necessary to all without exception, for taking away Sin, and for the infusion of Grace; so is Penance necessary to all them that after Baptism have fallen into mortal sin: and the effects of it are no less, say you, than Pardon and Reconciliation. This is the only Plank to swim safe to shore on, after a moral Shipwreck; without which all such sink down into the Abyss of Perdition. Well, the more necessary you esteem This to be, and the more valuable its Effects, the more comfort would proportionably fall to your share, if you were sure you had it. But on the contrary it will be your misery not to know you are enriched with that treasure. When you have come to the Priest Contrite, and opened all your sins to him without Reserve, and are disposed to satisfy for all injuries done by you, it is a mournful thing, after all this, to come away Uncertain of your being indeed Absolved, for want of Knowledge that the Priest could Effectually, and did Actually Intent to Release you of your sins. Which is the sad case of every Roman Catholic.  
§. 7. 3. No Roman Catholic is certain that he at any time receives the Sacrament of the Eucharist  
Though you make not This altogether so necessary, as you do Baptism and Penance, yet you hold it to be matter of great advantage to the Soul. The Substantial Body of Christ, you say, is received there, and with, and by it Spiritual Nourishment, whereby the Graces of the Spirit are sustained and increased; and the Soul consequently made more vigorous for performing all Christian duty. Now the more excellent the Effects of this Sacrament are known to be, the greater comfort it is apt to yield to all that are certain they receive it, and do this, as they hope, Worthily. But on the contrary, how doleful is it to be uncertain (how great soever their preparations have been for it) whether they at any time truly have it, for want of Knowing that the Priest could Effectually and did Actually Intent to Consecrate, without which the Elements remain Unsanctified, and cannot be Vehicles of those Blessings designed by Christ to be communicated that way to the Soul. And yet this is the sad case of Roman Catholics.  
§. 8. It remains that I add, you are not only unhappy in not knowing This, with respect to the foresaid Blessings to be received by it; But also with respect to two great Duties (as you count them) to be done, which depend upon the Consecration. One is the Adoration of the Host; the other the Offering it as a Sacrifice both for the quick and dead. If your Church do both these on Uncertain grounds, it will look a very sad thing: And that she doth so, will be inferred from what hath been already proved, Consecration itself, which alone can be supposed to support them, being found to be an Uncertain thing. That nothing may remain obscure, touching these matters, I shall take room enough to explain them.  
For the First, viz. Adoration of the Host; The Trent-Council delivers this Doctrine to warrant the practice of it:  
There is no place left for doubt, but all the faithful of Christ may exhibit Adoration, which is due to the true God, to this most Holy Sacrament, in their Veneration of it. 
* Nullus dubitandi locus relinquitur, quin omnes Christi fideles— latriae cultum qui vero Dco debetur, buic sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione exhibcant. Sess. 13. cap. 5.   
And the Council there subjoins, that the Custom was piously and religiously brought into the Church, of Yearly setting a Day apart, for carrying the Sacrament in Solemn Procession, through frequented Ways and public Places, in order to its being Adored, etc.  
It is too well known to be insisted on, that assoon as the Priest hath consecrated, he pays to the Sacrament the Worship that belongeth to God alone; and the People present, upon the Usual Notice given them, do the same: And that in the most populous Towns of the Roman Communion, when it is carried through the Streets to any Sick person, under a Canopy, all that meet it fall down and adore it.  
§. 9 I have said all this, to evince that the Adoration spoken of, hath not for its Object our Blessed Saviour considered as corporally present in Heaven, but as present under the Species of Bread or Wine; or both. It is the Sacrament that is to be Adored, your Council and practice tell us. But now the Body is no Sacrament without the Species, for there would be wanting in that case a Visible Sign, which is the Genus of a Sacrament. This Point being fixed, I come to ask, What if there happen to be no true Consecration, when the Exterior Sacramental Action is done, which is a thing you all grant may happen?  
§. 10. Why, the same Adoration is paid still, upon a presumption of true Consecration. If I ask again, What is adored in that case? It must be answered, a Creature, viz. the Bread, is adored instead of God.  
And then this is in one sense or another, Idolatry.  
It follows also, upon the same ground, That when men are Uncertain whether there be true Consecration, they are also uncertain whether they commit not Idolatry in such their Adorations.  
Now I conclude, that Roman Catholics are at no time certain, that they commit not Idolatry in Worshipping the Host.  
I add, God is very jealous of his Honour, and Men should be tender of it too; and therefore I would think they should have either simple Evidence or Revelation for the Divinity of the Object, before they pay to it that greatest Tribute of Adoration: But Roman Catholics light far short of that Certainty of the matter, and yet venture to adore, hit or miss.  
§. 11. For the Second: The Eucharist, according to you, is a proper Sacrifice: That is, the Body and Blood of Christ, are by the Priest truly and properly offered to God in the Mass, under the visible Species of Bread and Wine: And this is a Propitiatory Sacrifice. God being pleased with this Oblation, grants to those, for whom it is Offered, Grace, Repentance, Remission of many and grievous Sins, and Supplies for their several Necessities. Nor doth this profit Men alive only, but after Death. Thus your Church teaches.  
I cannot but acknowledge that this Doctrine is believed among you, for I find that most Men of Estates in your Communion, do at their Death leave good round Sums of Money to certain Priests, who in consideration of it, are to shorten their Benefactors stay in the acute pains of Purgatory, by saying of Masses, or Offering this Sacrifice in their behalf. And if this Doctrine be true, the Service done them is worth their Money; which cannot be better employed otherwise.  
§. 12. But if there be no Consecration made by those respective Priests, who promise to help them by that Means, there will be a great disappointment somewhere. But I shall say no more of that. However, this I may say, (having laid down a Warrant for it) that neither Priests nor People are certain, that there will be a return of Masses for the Money, as not knowing whether they be true Priests, and so (intent how they will) capable of turning the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, which are the supposed Matter of that Sacrifice. In this condition are all Roman Catholics.  
Thus, Sir, supposing, for Argument-sake, your Doctrine of Transubstantiation to be true, (though I profess, it was never in my power to believe it) the sundry things I have here alleged, do nevertheless hold good against you.  
§. 13. 4. No Roman Catholic is sure that he ever partakes of your other Sacraments, not yet particularly mentioned by me, as Confirmation and extreme Unction, as not knowing whether the Ministers of them could effectually, and did actually Intent in the Administration of them. Without which, as I have often showed, there is no Sacrament. Being almost weary of enlarging on particulars, I have put these together.  
Number and describe all the great Effects you can attribute to them, (and in any thing of this kind I will grant your Supposition, for argument-sake, as I have all along in these Papers) and after you have done this you will find, that no Roman Catholic is sure he shares in any one of them, for the Reasons often alleged before. Bishops, Priests, and all other Members of your Communion are wrapped up in an inextricable Uncertainty.  
§. 14. All I can honestly (to the best of my Knowledge) grant you, according to your Principles laid down, is this, That the Ministers of Baptism know that those they have Baptised are partakers of that Sacrament. I mean it only of Infants, who could not put in a bar against the Efficacy of it. But yet neither the said Ministers nor any other of your Body knows that himself was Baptised, as not Knowing how he intended who Baptised him. So that what I inferred stands firm, viz. that not one of you knows that he doth or hath received any one of your Sacraments.  
§. 15. I advertise, This is it which makes the difference in this respect between the Ministers of Baptism and those of your other Sacraments, treated of before, Those need no special character to qualify them for that work. Any man or woman, whether Jew, Heathen, or Turk, may Baptise with Effect, provided they Intent to do what the Church doth; according to your doctrine: Whereas the Ministers of the other Sacraments (Matrimony excepted) must have special power and authority from Christ to Administer, or else they Act in vain. And though Matrimony depend not (to speak your language) on the Priestly character, the parties Marrying being the proper Ministers of that Sacrament; yet I cannot grant them the same Certitude with the Ministers of Baptism, because Two must there Intent alike, or nothing is done; and neither of them can be sure judges save of their own respective Intention.  
That they make a civil Contract to lead an individual life plainly appears, when he saith, I take thee for my Wife: and she, I take thee for my Husband. But whether both parties also Intent to make those Words signify the sacred Conjunction of Christ with his Church, (in a general or special Sense, in a more distinct or confused) and thereby to obtain Grace, cannot appear to either party. The man can be sure but for himself, nor can the woman but for herself.  
§. 16. Here is to be noted, when I make the Contracting parties Ministers of Matrimony, I follow only the greater part of your Authors. Where you vary, I cannot represent you as agreed. But for those that make a Priest the Minister of it, they are not a whit the nearer Certainty, because they know not his Intention.  
Before I move forward, I shall re-mind the Reader that the Inferences hitherto drawn speak forth misery to Roman Catholics on these two grounds, put together. (1.) There is no Sacramental Grace conveyed, where there are no true Sacraments. The Terms are essentially Relative. (2.) There is an equal Uncertainty of the Sacraments, and of the fruits of them.  
Now I say, each Roman Catholic, for aught he can know, wants the Sacraments, and by consequence their Effects; and if he have them, he yet wants the comfort of Knowing it. Which makes the Roman Church in a sad condition.  
Sir, When you have considered what hath been already said, I would commend a few Inferences more to the exercise of your thoughts.  
§. 17. 1. If none of you can know that any particular man in your Church is a true Bishop or Priest, (which is proved) it follows that the Jesuits, who lay so much weight upon the Papal Chair, cannot know the Pope to be so much as a Priest, nor consequently that he is an Infallible Judge of Faith.  
Those they account Successors of Saint Peter in the Universal Pastorship of the Church (to whom they appropriate special Privileges, and particularly that of Infallibility) are not to be Laymen sure, but such as have the Sacerdotal Character. But since no man alive (as is proved) is sure according to your doctrine, that any particular man is Priest, no man is sure the Pope is such, and consequently that he is an Infallible Judge of Controversies.  
The Intention of him who Baptised and Ordained the Pope, and the capacity of his Ordainer were, and ever will be hidden things: and hence springs the Uncertainty.  
§. 18. 2. Now a word to those called the Parisian Divines. If you cannot know that any particular men are true Bishops or Priests, you cannot know that any of your Roman Councils have defined Infallible Truth, in as much as yourselves hold that the promise of Divine Assistance, by which alone they can be supposed to be preserved inerrable, is not made to any Assemblies but such as consist of men in Holy Orders.  
You are indeed content that Laymen be present there, and act in a certain inferior Sphere, viz. That they assist in examining difficulties, consult, debate, approve, protect, etc. But to none of them do you allow the power of Determination or Decision. Those Synods then, as yourselves hold, are to be made up of Bishops, or Priests, or both.  
Now because it cannot be known that these ever had Priestly Orders, for want of Knowledge that they were truly Baptised and Ordained, you must be Uncertain whether such were true Councils, and consequently whether they decreed and defined Infallible Faith.  
Although you may have some true Priests in general, yet in regard you are uncertain who they are, How know you that the major part of such Councils, ex. gr. that of Trent, were true Priests and consequently capable of making Infallible determinations? I will speak a less word, How know you that the 4th part there were such? You might have a true Clergy, I say, and yet it is possible that few or none of them might be in that Synod. For the Clergy in a Council usually bears but a very small proportion, for number, to the rest. Many of these may possibly have true Orders, when most of the Members of such a Council want them. Unless you know both the capacity and Intention of those who Baptised and Ordained such Members, you are not (as hath been proved) assured they were Bishops or Priests; and consequently that the Holy Ghost assisted them in their work.  
If sending men to a Council will indeed by Post-fact justify men's Baptism and Orders, it were well worth the while (whatever it cost) to have as frequent Councils as possible; and to send numerous flocks of the Clergy thither to stay one Session, to be succeeded still by more, till the Uncertainty of the Baptism and Orders of most of the Bishops and Priests be removed. But I think myself the first that ever spoke of this Cure for this Disease, and therefore think it will never be pleaded against me by my Adversaries. However, the distemper remains till some Remedy be found out, you know not that the Members of your Council are true Priests, and so interessed in the promise of Divine Assistance, and so capable of making infalltble decisions.  
§. 19 3. For those that hold Pope and Council, when conjoined, to be Infallible, I say but this to them, Neither Pope nor Council will be more surely proved to have had Baptism and Orders, when they are together, than when they are asunder; that is, it cannot be proved at all, if the Roman doctrine by me exhibited be true: and then they can hardly be thought to be Infallible Determiners of Faith.  
§. 20. 4. If no Roman Catholic can know that any particular man of theirs is a true Priest, than the boasted Argument taken from the Uninterrupted Succession of Lawful Pastors in the Roman Church, is of no force, till they can be sure of the Intention of the respective Baptizers of every Pope, and that every Pope from the Apostles days hitherto was Ordained by such as were capable of giving them Orders, and Intended to do it in each respective Ordination, (which, as I have evinced, can never be known) their Succession rests but upon bare presumption without proof, and therefore amounts not to a cogent Argument.  
Thus have I, as I think, accomplished my Undertaking, not leaving one Member of the Roman Communion certain that there is among them any one true Priest in particular, nor any Sacraments in particular, given or received in the Roman Church: and all this from the Medium I laid down at first, viz. your doctrine of the Intention.  
§. 21. Now I think fit to re-mind the Reader, that to do This (1.) I have explicated the Terms from Roman Catholic Authors. (2.) I have taken their doctrines for the grounds of my Inferences: nor have I in Order to any part of my work, needed to ruffle or quarrel any of their Notions, otherwise than my mere deductions from their Principles will do it. It is all one to me if they would make Seventy instead of Seven Sacraments, provided I prove they are not certain of their Giving and Receiving them. It is all one to me if they should make each Bishop of their Church as Infalllible as the Jesuits make the Pope; and every Provincial Council as Infallible as they do those they call General, provided I prove they cannot be sure that those Bishops, or Members of Councils are in Holy Orders, and thereby capable of that power of Decision or Determination, which they would attribute to them. None then ought to wonder, that I speak their language, without crossing several Principles of theirs, which I have occasion to mention, since it hath been my only design to render all their things lose and uncertain from their own Doctrine.  
§. 22. If it be said, I have proved some things which Roman Catholics deny not. I answer, (1.) The worst that will follow hence, is, There is a little labour lost. (2.) It may be of some advantage to the Truth to publish That among the Vulgar, which though the more learned Romanists cannot deny, yet they would gladly bury in silence. This Article of the Intention, I believe to be one of that kind.  
For want of representing This honestly and generally, the Credulity of Persons of both Persuasions is apt to be abused.  
§. 23. 1. Not a few of the Romanists are liable to be filled with an ungrounded Confidence, that Sacramental Grace ever attends the performance of the exterior Sacramental Actions. One of that sort I can name, who upon receiving an Absolution from his Confessor, came forth of his House, and leapt up for joy, and told some judicious Protestants, (who were occasionally before his Door) That he was then as free from Sin, as is an Infant newly Baptised.  
Had this Man known and considered the Truth I have here sifted out, he would either have been modestly silent, or tempered his Speech with these Conditions, If I be a true Penitent, and if my Confessor be a true Priest, and be thereby capable of Absolving me, and also did I intent to do it, then am I freed from Sin. But I fear most of your Laity entertain the like confidence, bottomed upon the like Ignorance.  
§. 24. 2. The vulgar People of our Communion, for want of skill in this Point, are more obnoxious to the Snares of your Priests, who tell them they both can, and will forgive them their Sins, if they will come into the Bosom of the Roman Church, and confess them. Now the Conscience being afraid of nothing, but Sin, a confident promise of Remission is oft harkened to readily, and with some pleasure, even when there is nothing sufficient to warrant it.  
Whereas, if all our People knew, that those stout Promisers could never prove, that themselves were truly Ordained, nor consequently Authorized to forgive Sin; nor so much as that themselves were ever Sacramentally Absolved from any one of their Sins, (all which I have proved.) They [our people] would smile at their Confidence, and bid them go find out a way for their own safety.  
§. 25. The Conclusion is, My true Representation of Things, to such as have not had the opportunity to know them before, may excuse my insisting upon some few things, which perhaps may not be denied by Roman Catholics, when they are squeezed to a Declaration of the Truth.   

SECT. IX. The Banks Mr. G. hath cast up to secure the Roman Priesthood, taken in general, cast down.  
SIR, I had, together with the last Section, ended all the trouble I purposed to give You, had you not by your way of Answer drawn me somewhat farther. I have said more than once, I thought it Manifestation enough of the weak Estate of your Church, to prove her Uncertain, whether she have any true Priests or Sacraments in particular. And I leave it to the judgement of the discerning Reader, whether I have not effected that, by showing the Uncertainty both of the Bishop's Intention, considered in itself, and also of the Validity of it, in case he doth Intent. But because you would have more, you shall.  
§. 1. And this more shall be chief to cast down or demolish the Bulwarks, you have cast up for the Security of the Bishop's Intention, in order to the Defence of your Priesthood in general. And truly this is all, that in strictness can be required of one that Undertakes to prove a Negative. What he does more, may well be accounted Surplusage.  
Having premised this, I shall again set down your Distinction in your own words, and then try what tendency it hath to the End you bring it for.  
§. 2. You must give me leave, say you, to distinguish in the major Proposition of the former Syllogism, between that knowledge which is obtained by the Observation of exterior Actions and Gestures, and attention to the words of the Prelates in any particular Ordinations; and that knowledge which we have from the Consideration of the Nature and end of Ordination in general, and which is also necessarily deduced from other known Principles of the Roman Catholic Church grounded upon Divine Revelation.  
First then, if you understand by knowing here, knowing in the former way only, which you seem to me to do, I deny this your first Proposition to be true. For supposing (not granting) that the Roman Catholic Church doth make Priestly Ordination to depend upon a Condition, that no man living knows in the former way (viz. by observing only what is outwardly done, etc.) whether it be fulfilled or no, yet it doth not follow, that she must be uncertain, whether she hath any true Priesthood, because others, besides the Ordaining Prelates, know that she hath true Priesthood by the second way of Knowledge ; that is, from the Nature and End of the Thing, and necessary deduction from other true Principles. Thus far you.  
§. 3. I shall now examine this distinction, taking in your Explication of it, and try how far it may bestead You.  
To gain an opportunity of making a distinction, and applying it with some show of pertinence, you seem to fancy my sense of the matter to be this, viz. The Ordainer's Intention cannot indeed be known by observing his exterior Action and Gesture in his particular Ordinations, but it may be known some other way. What else do these words of yours signify, viz. If you understand, say you, by knowing here, knowing in the former way only, which you seem to me to do, etc. This, Sir, is a groundless conceit, hatched on purpose, I think, to serve a turn. For, as to your Ordinations in particular, upon which your Priests in particular depend for their Being, (which it was my only aim to deal with) I have denied that the Bishop's Intention in them can any way be known, and have made my denial good. If then you apply both the Members of your distinction, with a respect to this Acception of the Terms, you pronounce my Proposition false, upon a figment of your own brain, which yet you would father on me, though I never gave you the least temptation to entertain it. But if you make the latter Member of your distinction, not to respect the Thing considered in particular, but only in general, than (1.) It is not applied ad idem, and therefore gives you no relief against my declared design. (2.) If it only respect (I say) the Ordainer's Intention in general, I deny that it can be known infallibly either of these ways, or any other whatsoever: And then there is no room here for your Supposition. It remains then that these Words in my Proposition— a Condition which no man living knows, etc. are absolutely Negative, with respect and proportion to the State of the Question laid down before.  
Which state had you called for, before you gave an Answer, your Things would have been no less pertinent.  
§. 4. As you have without cause made me think what best liketh you, so you are too oft leaving the thread of my Argument, which yet you are altogether to keep to, if you will be pertinent. I expected you would (as you should) have spoken here with a formal relation to my Proposition, which is this, all Churches that make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled, must be Uncertain whether they have any true Priesthood. Hence it evidently appears it was my direct business to prove you uncertain of your Priesthood from your Uncertainty of the performance of a Condition required to Ordination: and you did not, could not deny the firm Connexion of the Medium with the Extreme. Let us see now how you order your Matter.  
§. 5. You distinguish of Knowing without mentioning, for some time, any object of that Knowledge: which you should have supplied thus, I distinguish between Knowing of a Condition required to Ordination, etc. Then though you mention a Condition, yet you do not keep to it, but forthwith as it were forgetting it, run from it to Priesthood itself; that is, you run away from the consideration of a Sacrament to the [res Sacramenti] Effect of it. Your words are these— Supposing the Roman Catholic Church makes Priestly Ordination to depend upon a Condition that no man living— knows in the former way— whether it be fulfilled or no, yet it doth not follow She must be Uncertain whether she hath any true Priesthood. This is true if the Condition can be known to be fulfilled any other way: but it is impertinent in this place, for it should have been thus said— Yet it doth not follow she must be uncertain whether the said Condition be fulfilled or no. Or, if it may not be known that way, yet it may be known another. Here then is a manifest sliding from the Condition required to Ordination (which I afterwards made to be the Ordainer's Intention) to the Priesthood.  
§. 6. Now had I in my Reply grossly swallowed this Gulgeon, and submitted myself to deal about the proof of the Roman Priesthood in an indefinite unlimited manner, I must have lost my present Argument which precisely depends upon the incapacity of all men to know another man's Intention. But know, Sir, your Answer is no Answer to me, farther than you speak relatively to my Argument: and though you seem willing to slink away from a Condition to Ordination to Priesthood, the Effects of it; which you would find some plausible way to maintain, if you could shake off my Medium, yet I will surely keep you to it. It is an Argument, ad hominem, I grant, but it will by't you sorely.  
§. 7. Here I shall take occasion to advertise the Reader, that though an Argument ad hominem be in many cases less considerable, yet in mine who argue against Roman Catholics from their established doctrine, it hath as much Virtue and Cogency against them as if I made my Inferences from the four Gospels, or the Divine Epistles. For they hold the voice of their Church in their Councils of Florence, Trent, etc. to have the same Obligation upon Conscience that those Gospels and Epistles have. If my deductions be good, they must either grant the whole to their great loss, or by denying the Principles I go upon, lose and undo the whole frame of the Roman Church.  
Other Churches that assume not Infallibility, in such a case, part only with a particular Tenet, the rest of their frame standing as it did before; but Roman Catholics who attribute un errableness to their Church (on which pretended ground their present Fabric stands) utterly ruin their whole Building, if they grant their Councils to have been mistaken in any one Article they have defined for Faith.  
§. 8. Now I come to the Matter your Words present us with, for ascertaining the required Intention of your Ordaining Bishops, considered (I suppose you mean) in general.  
As your Words seem to run at first sight, you lay down two Grounds for this. 1. The Nature and End of Ordination in general. 2. Deductions from other known Principles of the Roman Catholic Church. I shall consider both these.  
§. 9 For the first, I know indeed that every Institution sets forth the Nature of what is to be observed, and the Ends they are appointed for, are notified by the Institutor: but I never learned that Institutions carry power in them to cause themselves to be observed. The Churches named in the Revelation, which long since perished, (these and others) once had all Christian Institutions, but in process of time lost or left them, what proof then is the Nature and End of Ordination of its true Existence, or due performance in the Roman Church?  
But if you intended the Two I mentioned to be but one Groundwork by their conjunction, so that the Sense is this, The Nature and End of Ordination in general, in Union or together with Deductions from other known Principles of the Roman Catholic Church, etc. I am well content, as not being inclined to make any man's words (howsoever put) to signify what their speaker or writer meant not. And I confess some of your own words persuade me they look this way. I shall therefore consider them together under the next particular.  
§. 10. For the second. You tell of the Bishop's Intention to be Knowable by way of Deduction from some known Principles of the Roman Church, grounded upon divine Revelation. The Reader may mark, you do not say, This Knowledge is immediately deducible from divine Revelation, but from some Principles grounded on it. For aught I see by this, you are not agreed to claim an Infallible certainty of the Intention of your Ordaining Bishops, even considered in general; that is, that there are any at all in the Roman Church that exert the required Intention. And yet without this, we have found there is no Ordination, and so no Priest, nor any of those 5. Sacraments that you consent to say depend on the Priestly character, or lastly, that your Church is a true Church; which yet is less than an Infallible Church. Deductions are but the work of Reason, and Reason is but a fallible Principle, say many of you.  
The dependence of all the links of this Chain hath been made good before, save the last, which is this, where there is no true Priesthood there is no true Church: Where there is no Infallible Certainty of the Being of a Priesthood, there is is no Infallible Certainty of the Being of a Church. To confirm this I need but say little.  
Thomas Aquinas lays down this distinction. A thing may two manner of ways be called necessary in respect of an End: 1. When the End cannot be had without it: as Meat is necessary to sustain man's life. And this is simply necessary to an End. 2. When the End cannot so conveniently be obtained without it: as a Horse is necessary for a journey. But this is not simply necessary to an End.  
This being premised for the clearer Resolution of the Case in hand, he adds,  
There are three Sacraments necessary by the first way of Necessity; two to particular persons, viz. Baptism simply and absolutely, and Penance upon supposition of mortal sin committed after Baptism. But the Sacrament of Order is [viz. simply] necessary to the Church. But other Sacraments are necessary by the second manner of necessity, etc. 
* Primo igitur modo necessitatis sunt tria Sacramenta necessaria; duo quidem personae singulari: baptismus quidem simpliciter & absolutè, poenitentia autem suppoposito peccato mortali post baptismum. Sacramentum autem Ordinis est necessarium Ecclesie. Sed secundo modo necessaria sunt alia Sacramenta, etc. Sum. Theol. par. 3. q. 65. art. 4.   
Nor have any of his Commentators, that I have met with, excepted against This, nor any others of your Church. Yourself a little beneath grants the point, where you say with relation hereunto, The means are necessary to the end. Several of your men, Bellarmine in particular 
* De Clericis, cap. 3. , contend that Protestant Churches are no true Churches, because as they allege they want a true Priesthood. Besides, enough is to be fetched for this purpose out of your Trent Council 
| Sess. 23 de Sacram. Ordinis. , but it is needless to do it.  
§. 11. From hence then I present you with this Scheme founded on your own Authority, you are no surer you have a true Church, than you are that you have a true Priesthood; you are no surer that you have a true Priesthood, even taken in general, than you are that you have true Ordination; you are not surer that you have true Ordination, than you are that your Ordaining Bishops Intent as your Church requires. Now in regard you agree not to claim for the Intention, the Infallible Certainty of Faith which immediately depends upon divine Revelation, I see not how you can reasonably agree to claim the Infallible Certainty of Faith for the truth of your Church. Which I commend to the Reader's observation.  
§. 12. You first tell us in general of some Known Principles of your Church from which the Knowledge of the Intention is deducible, and afterwards reckon them to be these, viz. That the Roman is the only Catholic Church; That God will continue and preserve that Church to the World's end: and all this, say you, appears from divine Revelation. You conclude hence they must have a true Priesthood, the Means being necessary to the End.  
Therefore, say you, whatsoever Intention of the Prelates is by them believed as Necessary for this End, they do certainly believe according to their Principles that God's Providence will secure it; his Omnipotence is able to make good his Fidelity.  
§. 13. For reply, 1. I observe to the Reader, That though you have presented us with a list of those Principles from which you pretend to deduce the Knowledge of the Ordainer's Intention, yet you only say, They appear from Divine Revelation, without showing either what this Revelation is, or where it is to be found.  
§. 14. 2. As our discourse was at first Personal, every one will conceive, that if your thoughts had then enabled you to make the  distinction, I must have asked, What the Revelation was and where it appeared, on which your said Principles are pretended to rest: Nor could you have refused to satisfy my Question, without bringing a Cloud upon the Cause you manage.  
And you may easily believe, that if I had known what you had been writing at London, I should have wished you would have set down What and Where the Revelation you speak of, is; that so I might have consented with you, or refuted you, according to the best judgement I could make of the Thing exhibited. I assure you, Sir, to obtrude upon the World, Doctrines, under the Notion of Articles of Faith, without due proof of their Divine Original, is too great an Empire for Creatures to arrogate to themselves; nor can one reasonably submit to another in such cases, whether they respect God's honour, or their own safety. Therefore when you talk of Divine Revelation, you should have showed it.  
§. 15. You would surely enrol me in the Catalogue of frantics, if I should upon this Occasion spend Years in hunting through all Books for Texts of Scripture, which your Popes, or their Subjects have fancied to be useful for proving the Roman to be the Universal Church, and in confuting their vain Glosses, when I have sound them. Your Person is not adverse to me, but your Cause; and therefore you leave the Field, and cease to be my Adversary, unless you show me your places of defence, and wherein their strength lies, and then defy my Assaults. But this is not done here.  
Tell me, is the Revelation you speak of, recorded in the first Verse, or Chapter of Genesis, or the last Verse of the Revelation, or in any Verse between those. Have you not read that Pope Boniface the VIII. proved the Pope of Rome to be the sole Head of the Christian Church (with relation-to which Head you call yours the One and the Whole Church) out of the first Verse of Genesis, In the beginning God created, etc. He collected the Argument thus, Dicitur in principio non in principiis, etc. It is said, quoth that Pope, in the Beginning; not, in the Beginnings, etc. And this is urged to prove, that there must be One visible Head of the Church, and this the Pope of Rome, with whom all Christians must believe, and to whom all must submit. Have you not read how Pope Gregory the VII. a great while before that, fetched a proof for the Point, out of the 16th. Verse of that Chapter, God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, etc.— Illa [dignitas] quae praeest diebus, id est Spiritualibus, Major est. That is,— That Dignity that rules the Days, that is Spirituals, is greater. I shall omit the comparison between Popes and Kings, which this Text is brought to settle, and only apply it to the Point in hand;  
That God made the Pope to Rule all Christians, is all that I shall take Notice of, as proved by it.  
I have brought these two infallible Interpreters of Scripture upon the Stage, (and which of you should be such, if your Popes be not) only to show it would be endless to seek out those many Texts supposed by Roman Catholics to tend to make out, that the Roman is the One Catholic Church of Christ upon Earth, and to expose their extravagant Mis-expositions of them. I might soon begin with Genesis, but might be long before I had run through the Bible. If these two Popes had spoken only in general words, as you do, of Divine Revelation for their Headships, (on which your Matter virtually depends) I am so dull, I should never, unless by chance, have found out what Scriptures they referred to for it: And so, though I had discussed a hundred other Texts, if those had been left out, it might have been said, I had left my work undone. But wise Men will not judge I ought to undertake Unreasonable tasks, or seek a Needle in a Bottle of Hay.  
But I spend time: For, it had been enough to say, I am only proving a Negative, and need do no more than over-turn what you are pleased to erect for your Defence. You have set me no more work here than I have considered, and so I have no more to do here about your divine Revelation, whether you refer to Scripture, or any thing else.  
§. 16. Yet it cannot but be worth our Notice, That your Method of maintaining your Church is most easy and expedite. When you find yourselves unable particularly to prove your performance of those things which your Councils require to the making your Institutions valid, yet your work is done by saying, We are the Catholic Church, which God hath promised to preserve to the World's end; and therefore all we require will be certainly performed, though we cannot otherwise make it out.  
You may also prove all your more speculative Doctrines (had you a thousand more than you have) by the same easy Method. We are the only Church, you may say, to which God hath promised his Spirit to lead us into all Truth, and therefore our Articles cannot be false, tho' we cannot otherwise prove them to be true.  
§. 17. If this be sufficient, how imprudent have many of your Men been, to spend their pains, and health, and time, about evincing your particular Points to be founded on Revelation, when a few general Words would have done it to rational Satisfaction. Besides, as Cart loads of Books, on this supposition, are unnecessarily written, so the Readers of them are at unnecessary expense of Moneys in buying them, and of labour in perusing them. What an easy World should we have had, if this your Method had all-along generally obtained. To shorten the way to knowledge is a praiseworthy enterprise, and to teach how to defend truth without care and trouble is a mighty thing. Well; You have showed us an expedite Art of Controversy, and such as may be taught even illiterate Ploughmen in half an hours time. And I leave it to the Reader to determine, whether a Ploughman of your Persuasion, could have said less in this Matter, than you have done, We are the Only Church, etc.  
§. 18. However, consider, Sir, This you use, is but an accidental Argument, and can bestead you no longer, if any other Body of Christians shall please to call themselves the Catholic Church, without offering the least proof of it. Which is most apparently your case here. The Donatists of old, who appropriated to themselves the name of the Catholic Church, might have easily quelled all Arguments brought against them, at your rate of answering: For the said name being arrogated, and the premises belonging to it, all the rest will follow readily.  
§. 19 If you think to relieve yourself by saying, I am bound to accept any deductions you shall make from any of your Principles, I reply, no surely. I was indeed to prove a Point from some of them, and have, I hope, done it. The more you speak of That, I fear you expose yourself the more to derision.  
§. 20. From the view of your Answer, it will appear, that though you called to me, out of due time, for the Explication of more than a few Terms, yet you have not had the heart to explain one of them in your Answer, neither what you mean by Intention, nor what by Certainty, nor any of the rest. Instead of saying, what is the particular nature of the Intention required by your Church, you describe it not otherwise than thus— Whatsoever Intention of the Prelates is by them believed as necessary—. Instead of telling us the particular nature of your knowledge of the Intention, you only say, I deny not that it may sufficiently be known—.  
You have no mind it seems to swim out of your depth, it being a silly thing to court danger: nor are you so hardy a Champion as to step a few paces out of your hold to meet an enemy, being mindful enough of the old Proverb, It is good sleeping in a whole skin. Your frank opening yourself this way might have led me, if I had mistake any thing of yours, to the true mark, but could not have caused my digression from it; and therefore though you were not bound in rigour (further than to make your Answer apposite and useful) to have done this, yet it would have looked brave and generous to have done it. Whether others shall interpret your carriage in this kind to be due caution or no, I shall not concern myself. Nevertheless I must say this, you knew the point must be beaten out at last, and it had been manly to have contributed something towards it: whereas he that knew not the particular Nature of the Subject before, knows it but very little better by any help you give him in your Answer. I hope the Reader will excuse me for staying a little too long here, in recompense of the labour I have been at in the first part of this Tractate, to make the state of the question plain to him.  
§. 20. Whatsoever shall become of any higher Certainty which you cannot challenge me to yield upon Principles you have hitherto barely begged, without offering the least colour of proof for them; you seem to have a mind to secure to yourself a moral Certainty of the Intention of your Bishops in general. Your words are these,  
It is morally impossible that all the Prelates in the Roman Catholic Church should be so malicious as wilfully to have omitted any thing in Ordination which they believed to be Essential to it, and which the Church requires as so, supposing it possible for them to do it and not be discovered. It is impossible for us to believe, according to our Principles, that they should all turn devils— and conspire to damn the whole Church— when withal they could propose no advantage at all to themselves by this, but the clean contrary: Thus you.  
I Reply: The Pillar you have placed here for supporting your moral certainty of the Intention, is too weak to bear it up. Which will appear by considering the following particulars.  
§. 21. 1. You say not, It is impossible that any one, or several, or many of your Bishops should out of Malice withdraw the required Intention.  
You only say, It is morally impossible that all should turn devils and conspire to damn the whole Church—  
§. 22. 2. I say, if Some may withhold their Intention through Malice, (which you deny not) Others may upon other accounts omit it, viz. for Unbelief, culpable Ignorance, gross Negligence, natural Inadvertence, etc. I shall speak a little of some of these.  
§. 23. For Unbelief. It is Morally possible that some of your Bishops have internally or mentally embraced Paganism or Judaisme notwithstanding their profession of the Christian Religion. It is notorious that the Inquisitors of Heretical pravity in Roman Catholic kingdoms have often met with such men, after they had many years lain hid under the disguise of the Christian profession: and is it any way repugnant that the same Cloak which frequently covers Merchants and Gentlemen and others, should cover Priests and Bishops also? Now these disbelieving the virtue of all Christian Institutions, and that of Ordination in particular; nay judging them to be the devices of certain Politic men, or the Offspring of deluded Fancies, may omit Intending in their Ordinations, without designing to damn or otherwise hurt the Ordained party.  
§. 24. For Culpable Ignorance, which the Schools call Antecedent. It is morally possible that more than a few in your Church have in several ages been promoted to the dignity of Bishops, who have been men of very little Learning and much laziness, and so may have fallen short of Knowing either That your Church requires the said Intention at all, or at least under the said Necessity: and no wonder then if they may have omitted it. But here is yet no malice nor devils in the case; for I may suppose if such had known it, they would have roused up themselves to the performance of their duty.  
§. 25. For Supine Negligence: It is too frequently seen that many grossly slight and neglect those duties which yet they know are to be done for the good of others, without harbouring any malicious design against them.  
§. 26. It is enough to hint to the Reader, that the Intention may fail through occasional Cares, or Fears, or Crosses, or deep Studies (spoken of before) which either put the Thoughts often to long stands or pauses, or else hurry them away from duty else whiter. Many men are enabled by sad experience to conceive this I have said, to be very probable.  
§. 27. Besides Natural Inadvertence incident to all men, There is in many a very dull unactive temper of Mind arising either from Natural Constitution, or sometimes from contracted Bodily distempers, whereby the thoughts are many times hindered from rising higher than to what is sensibly to be done. And it cannot be denied that it is morally possible that such Impersections may be incident to your Bishops, (as well as other men) and that their due Intending may be obstructed by them.  
§. 28. Now, Sir, I must put you in mind, you have not made any tolerable Enumeration of the Causes of the defect of Intention: and while you have only put a Bar against an Universal Conspiracy from malice, you give room for the defect from all other Causes which you have no way provided against; and so you are stark lame in your defence. If you are well acquainted with Roman Catholic writers, I wonder you should take up so short, since they assign the same Causes I have done.  
Suarez doth in one place, add to Malice other two Causes of this, among other things, viz. Culpable ignorance, and Natural Inadvertence which excuseth from sin 
* Sive id fecerit ex malitia, sive ex ignorantia culpabili, sive ex naturali inadvertentia quae excusat peccatum. Tom. 4. disp 32. .  
And your Authors in their applying Remedies against this Evil seem to have their eyes chief fixed upon other Causes than Malice. To show this, and the defectibleness of the Intention, I shall produce onlyone Testimony. It is a passage in the famous Mass-book, ad Vsum Sarum 
* Cautclie Missae. .  
If any Priest in the time of Consecration be distracted from Actual Intention and devotion, 
Siquis tempore Consecrationis ab actuali intentions & devotione distractus fuerit, nihilominus consecrat dummodo intentio habitualis in eo remanscrit. Si autem per summam distractionem habitualis intentio cum actuali tollcretur, videtur quod deberet verba consecrationis cum actuali intentione resumere.  he nevertheless consecrates, provided the Habitual Intention remain in him.—. But if through very great distraction his Habitual Intention be taken away as well as the Actual, it seems that he ought to resume the Words of Consecration [say them over again] with Actual Intention.  
Here note, that the words Habitual and Virtual have the very same signification, as to our case: and that Aquinas with the other elder Schoolmen described this Intention by the word Habitual, till Scotus his time, who substituted the word Virtual as more proper to express the said Notion, and is followed ever since by the writers of the Roman Church.  
§. 29. Now I go on to say (1.) This passage of the Mass-book is an express acknowledgement, that Priests when they do the Exterior work of Consecration may fail to Intent both Actually and Virtually. Which upon the same ground is equally applicable to Bishops with respect to Ordination.  
(2.) It prescribes this Remedy against the said defect, that the Offending Priest go to the work again, and do it better. I wish the advice had power to necessitate those it is addressed to, to follow it. But that (alas!) cannot be hoped for.  
§. 30. (3.) This advice is not offered to such as withdraw their Intention through personal malice, or contempt of Religion, (which is the thing I here directly aimed to show,) but to such as fail by inadvertence or dispersion of thoughts.  
And such are omitted in this address perhaps for this Reason, That such cannot be well looked upon as capable (in any proximate degree) of the Advice given, whereas some, at least, of those other careless blundering (yet charitable) Priests may.  
(4.) I observe once again, from the scope of the cited passage, against a certain Person I mentioned before, That the distraction or disturbance here mentioned, as the Cause of the failure of the Intention, cannot be meant of the distemper of Frenzy or Madness. For, 1. The Advice is offered to such as perceive their own defect, which Mad men, as such, cannot do. 2. Wise men (and such I hope the Compilers of the Sarum-Missal will be held to be) advise that Physic be given to Madmen for the Recovery of their Reason, rather than directions to act wisely by, which supposeth them already in the state of it. If a Madman (who had gained a Habit of Baptising before his distemper) should rush into a House, and wash an Infant, newly born, with the Invocation of the most Blessed Trinity, no wise Man would desire him to do it again with due heed and Actual Intention, his supposed condition, forbidding him either to hit the Intention at first, or to amend it in the repeated Action. This advice then given, must be concluded to be directed to persons capable of receiving it; which therefore cannot be frantic Priests. Hereby is confounded the affirmation of the Priest I point at, viz. That none but madmen could fail to intent aright.  
§. 31. You fee, Sir, several purposes are served by this Citation, besides that I directly brought it for, but all of them tend to the illustration of the Subject treated of. I shall only add this at parting with it, That it is not to be looked upon as a single Testimony only, but instead of a thousand such, as implying the judgement of all those Clergymen, who used and approved that renowned Missal. And what a considerable part of our Nation that Book obtained in, before that of Pope Pius the V was framed for the general Uniformity of your Worship, I leave you to think of: and consequently, what a vast Company of your Clergy (who sure were the best Judges in this case) did implicitly and by true Interpretation acknowledge, that there may be a defect of the Intention, both Actual and Virtual, which may proceed from other Causes, than that of Malice, which yet is the only thing alleged by you to that purpose.  
§. 32. Next, as an enforcement why there could be no malicious conspiracy of your Prelates, you add this, They could not, say you, propose any advantage to themselves by it, but the clean contrary.  
But you forget the Genius of Malice, to which doing mischief is an agreeable thing, without any allurements of Worldly profits, or the like. Remember the sad Instance of Satan's murdering our first Parents. This I say not, as believing any such conspiracy; nor is the fancying such a thing at all needful to my business, having showed that what Malice may do in some, the same may other Causes effect in others, as to the spoiling of the Intention: I say it only to show that to be weakness, which you bring to strengthen your Ground.  
§. 33. There will need no conspiracy of any sort to render you uncertain of the validity of your Ordainer's Intention, if you remember what I said before, (after the dispatch of my first task) viz. That all the defects of Intention, in your Ordaining Bishops from the Apostles death, hitherto, are chargeable upon, and utterly disable all that are reputed to derive power from them; and that the longer the Line is spun out by time, there will be more Nullities in the Intention, both of Bishops and Priests.  
§. 34. To rivet this, I ask, What if the Catholic Church for many Ages after Christ did not require this Intention, as necessAry to the Sacraments? If so, the grand Motive to vigilance and heedfulness of Intending was wanting, and so it is more probable, defects might then arise, which might baffle and enervate the greatest care and circumspection of succeeding Bishops. I cannot find that it was uninterruptedly so required; but if you can, I entreat you to show it.  
The Sum hereof is, (1.) You have attempted to arm yourself only against one of the many Causes of defect of Intention, letting in the rest like a Flood upon you. (2.) You have falsely supposed, that the effectual valid Intention cannot have failed in your Church, without an Universal Conspiracy of the Bishops of one Age: Whereas the defect may have been let in by degrees, and so may have overspread your Church, for any thing you have said to the contrary on this Head.   

SECT. X. Mr. G.'s Argument, urged by way of Retort, examined and enervated.  
NOW you come to instance in, and frame an Argument upon a desperate Subject, which you take to be exactly parallel to mine, and say, That is vicious, and therefore Mine must be so. And to make the clearer way to your Syllogistick Forms, you pretend to lay down two Principles of our Church, as the Groundwork of them.  
Of the First you express yourself thus,  
You take it for a Principle amongst you, that there is a certain Number of those that are truly Elected to Salvation in your Communion. You mean in the Church of England.  
§. 1. For Reply. Holding you to be well seen in the Doctrine of our Church, I would desire you to instruct me, where I may find that Principle. I had thought our Church had dealt with such Things only in a general way, with a respect to the Universal Church; and left particular Churches to try their Election, by making sure their Calling. Of our Articles, the 17th. only concerneth this point; Which so far, as I am concerned to produce it, runs thus,  
Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby He hath constantly decreed by his Counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation, as Vessels made to honour.  
And of the Promises relative unto this, the same Article saith, Furthermore we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth in holy Scripture.  
You see how indefinitely our Church speaks in this Matter— Those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind: And— We must receive God's promises, as they be generally set forth in holy Scripture.  
'Tis our Principle, you see, That some in God's Church belong to the Election of Grace; and that God will make good his Promises by Saving them. But we descend no lower, nor need we, as thinking it sufficient for any particular Church to be able to say,  
We have all necessary Doctrine, both Dogmatical and Moral, and may be Saved, if we truly Believe, and Sincerely obey it; to both which God in his mercy call us. We venture not to say, God hath Elected and promised to Save those in Italy, or these in England: But we say, Whosoever truly Reputes and Believes the Gospel shall be Saved, whether in Italy or England, or any other place. We have Divine Warranty for this: But we have none to give a Local or Personal description of those that are Elected, and shall through Grace be Saved.  
§. 2. Nevertheless we have as great ground of Hopes, judging of the Tree by the Fruits, that many of the Members of this Church are of the Number of the Elect, and so will be saved, as you can have that the Members of the Italian, or Spanish, or French Church are such. But we do not, cannot (I say) undertake Unerrably to determine the Estates of particular Men, or Men of particular places. When we bury Men of the most pious and exemplary conversations, you may remember we express our strong Hopes only, but not perfect assurance of their Bliss. Secret things belong to God.  
§. 3. However, this will not alter the Nature of our proceeding, because you afterwards say, The Argument may be thus applied to any Christian Church in the World, or to all of them put together.  
The Universal Church exists in all of them put together, and since you make the Case of That and particular Churches all One, as to this Matter, I have the Liberty to make the Argument to respect all of them put together, or the Universal Church.  
You mention a Second Principle in this manner,  
And you will allow this also as a Principle, That these Elect must have true Saving Grace in their Hearts, as a Condition necessary to their Salvation.  
This, Sir, I acknowledge to be one of the Principles of our Church, and of all other Christian Churches in the World.  
Then you proceed from hence to add this,  
Which saving grace, because you do not know to be in any particular man, therefore you cannot be certain that He is one of those that is Elected to Salvation. Which is unquestionably true.  
Now I am to examine your Forms of Argumentation, pretended to be parallel to those, I urged against you. Your first is thus,  
That Church which makes Salvation depend upon a Condition, which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled, in order to Salvation, must be Uncertain whether they have any, who shall be saved in their Communion. But the English Church doth so. Ergo, The English Church is Uncertain, whether they have any which shall be saved in their Communion.  
§. 4. Now because you say, The Argument may be thus applied to any Christian Church in the World, or to all of them together; I shall alter the Form a little, and make it respect all of them. Thus it goes,  
Whosoever makes Salvation depend upon a Condition, which no Man living knows, whether it be fulfilled in Order to Salvation, must be Uncertain whether they have any who shall be saved in their Communion. But all the Christian Churches in the world put together, do so. Ergo, All the Christian Churches in the world put together, are Uncertain whether they have any which shall be saved in their Communion.  
In regard, I say, One and all Christian Churches far alike, according to your own acknowledgement, with respect to this Argument, I have placed this latter form also in view. And what I shall say of them, is as follows.  
§. 5. I shall admit the parity of either of these Syllogisms with my first, under your own Notion of them newly mentioned: yet must tell you, in my way to your other, that though you made a distinction, and, at least, unnecessarily applied it to my first Proposition, and thereupon causelessly pronounced it false; yet I shall not imitate you in your indiscretion; but grant your Major, as generally put, to be true, because of the Connexion of a necessary Condition with That it is required to: whether it be in deed necessary, or only so in the Estimation of the Church that requires it. For the Notknowing a Condition to be fulfilled, upon which the Being of a Thing is suspended, evidently necessitates the Uncertainty of the Thing itself.  
§. 6. Pray know, Sir, had I not been prevented by your Compliance and Concessions, I would have dealt more distinctly with relation to the Instance you have put before I had given an Answer to it. I would in time have asked you a few of those questions you asked me out of time, as what Knowledge or Certainty you denied in your Instance, etc. or parted the sundry senses myself, and applied them; but I perceive I now need not.  
I shall then only deny the Minor which you prove in this manner,  
True Grace in the Heart is a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no in Order to Salvation.  
But the English Church [or, all Christian Churches put together—] requires Grace in the Heart in Order to Salvation. Ergo.  
The English Church [or, all Christian Churches put together—] requires a Condition in Order to Salvation, which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no.  
§. 7. Before I speak to this, I advertise That you here pretend only to make one man Uncertain of the truth of Grace in another man's Heart, as I did to make one man Uncertain of another's Intention when you gave this Answer. And indeed the making your Instance a parallel to mine confines the sense hither. So that here is, according to yourself, room left for every man to judge as well as he can, of his own Grace, and so whether he be one of God's Elect. Which thing falls not here into dispute.  
§. 8. This premised, I will thus distinguish in the Major of this Syllogism, of true Grace in the Heart. By Grace in the Hearts of men is meant either— in the Hearts of men considered [determinatè] in particular, or— in the Hearts of men considered [indeterminatè, vel in confuso] in general.  
§. 9 If when you say True Grace in the Heart is a Condition which no man living knows, etc. you mean it of men in particular, I will freely grant your Proposition to be true. For no man hath full certainty that another hath true Grace in his Heart, God having reserved that prerogative to himself, who is the only searcher of the heart 
* Jer. 17.10. .  
§. 10. But then I add, my granting this brings no disadvantage at all upon us. The Knowledge of our having the true means of Grace, (with their Effects) as God's holy Word and Sacraments, and Persons duly Authorized to Administer them (the Knowledge hereof, I say) is not any whit obstructed or clouded by our ignorance of another man's grace: inasmuch as a graceless man may be a true Minister of them, and the Efficacy of divine Ordinances depends upon the merciful Operation of their Institutor, and not on the Grace of those that Administer them. Whereas on the other side, your ignorance of the Intention of your Ministers in particular, renders you Uncertain whether you have the true means of Grace, and consequently the Benefits God is ordinarily wont to confer by them; as hath above been shown. Which amounts to a vast difference.  
§. 11. But if you mean it of Grace in the Hearts of men taken in general, (which acception alone your Instance seems to respect) So that the Sense of the Proposition is This, True Grace in the Heart of some or other, some where or other, is a Condition which no man living knows, etc.  
§. 12. I, without more ado, deny your Major as utterly false in this Sense: and so may either dismiss you re infecta, or put you to the trouble of making another Syllogism before I need to assign the manner of Knowledge, whereby we know Grace to be in some or others. But I will be good natured and supply your defect. You should then have gone on to urge to this purpose.  
If true Grace in the heart be a Condition which any man living knows whether it be performed in order to Salvation, than he knows it either by some Principles evidently grounded on divine Revelation, or some other way.  
But he knows it neither by any Principles evidently grounded upon divine Revelation, nor any other way: Ergo,  
Grace in the heart is a Condition which no man living knows whether it be performed in order to Salvation.  
§. 13. Now, Sir, and not till now, am I obliged to assign the way by which true Grace may be known to be in some or others, though we know not who. Upon my denial of the Minor when you are pleased to say, ad parts, I must tell which way I know it, or give up my Cause.  
§. 14. Well. Without the formality of your distinction I say, This may be known by a Knowledge grounded immediately on divine Revelation. The whole of this matter appears in Scripture.  
1. When our B. Saviour promiseth That the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church 
* Matt. 16.18. : He saith in effect, that in despite of men and devils, he will at all times even to the world's end maintain some in his true Faith and Worship, and also save them at last.  
2. He determines true Grace or Purity of heart to be necessary in order to the Salvation of such. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God 
* Mat. 5.8. . Which words by true and unquestionable implication exclude all impure persons from Salvation.  
But in many Texts such are formally excluded from it. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord 
‖ Heb 12.14. .  
3. His promise to maintain and continue such a people cannot fail by reason of his divine Perfections— God that cannot lie promised 
* Tit. 1.2. . He is faithful that hath promised 
‖ Heb. 10.23. .  
§. 15. Thus according to express Scripture we find, that Grace in the heart is necessary to Salvation: that God hath promised he will ever preserve and save some in the world who are Faithful and Gracious: that his promise cannot fail. All which put together truly grounds our Knowledge, that there is true Grace in some Members of the Christian Church, though we know not who or where they are in particular.  
Thus have I spoke to your Argument considered in itself, and this more regularly than you have done to mine, if I flatter not myself.  
§. 16. But that which is the main concern, I do not find that parity you pretend there is between your second and mine: pray where find you in the divine Oracles that the Intention I have described, is as necessary to the Being of the Sacraments, as they teach that Grace is to the being Saved. Had God indeed knit them individually together, and declared the necessary dependence the Sacraments have of this Intention, we should have been sure from divine warranty (as I have proved we are in the matter of Grace) that some Bishops and Priests in God's Church have from time to time duly Intended. But alas! you have exhibited nothing of divine Revelation to show this; the chaffy general words you have given have nothing of weight or cogency in them. This grand disparity is very apparent, and you have said nothing to hinder any man from apprehending it such; and so the design of your Instance is defeated, and shares with the rest of your Answer in its misfortunes.  
§. 17. I may well forbear to speak of other things; for, Fancy what promises you please, as peculiarly made to Men of your Communion, yet know, God is not bound to enable Men to believe and perform what himself hath not made necessary, in order to Grace and Salvation.  
§. 18. I shall now, Sir, desire the Protestant Reader to remember, as an Antidote against Temptations from Roman Catholics, the uncertain comfortless Estate you are in. For pick you out the most discerning Layman amongst you, and suppose all your reputed Clergy to pass leisurely by him, one by one, yet he shall not upon sure Grounds be able to say, of any of the whole Number, This is a true Bishop, or a true Priest: Nor can any of Them with better Warranty affirm of themselves, I am such a One.  
Nor can one Member of your whole Body assuredly say, I have once in my life time been partaker of one true Sacrament. All this I have made good.  
If you could say, some or other of our Clergy are true Bishops and Priests; and some or other of our Body have received true Sacraments, tho' we know not who, or where those are; yet it is a very lamentable thing for each of you to be uncertain concerning himself, and uncapable of applying those Mercies to any particular Persons. And yet it appears you have taken no great Care to secure even this heartless General Good to your Church.  
Had you armed your Paper with any particular strength, with relation hereunto, you should have found me an easy Enemy, inasmuch as I had not, nor needed to have, any design that way upon you, what I have done otherwise, being sufficient to expose your Nakedness.  
SIR, After you have delivered what you call your Full Answer, (which I have examined) you writ something more, though not under that Notion. And that I may appear just and fair to your Expectation, I will in short acquaint the Reader, what the Severals of it are; and subjoin a few Words to each of them.  
§. 1. 1. You desire me to declaro, What our Doctrine is of the Subject in question.  
Answer. It was the only business I undertook, to distress you with Consequents from your own Doctrine; and while I am a doing this, you call to me, Pray, Sir, What is the Doctrine of your Church? Now let the World judge, whether your request be not a calling me off from my proper Work, and very probably seeking an Occasion to leap aside from your Province. For whatever we hold, (which yet you was long enough a Student amongst us to under stand) what could my telling you that, boot you, so long as I evince that your own Doctrine intails afflictions on you?  
§. 2. 2. You call for an Explication of several Terms.  
Answer. I have told you how unseasonable your Call was, but withal have done at large what you requested.  
§. 3. 3. You say, It would have been more for the Satisfaction of my Protestant Auditors, if I would have proved (as you proposed) the Lawfulness of our Separating, at the pretended Reformation, from every Communion of Christians in the World: or that any one Term of your Communion (you say, you gave me my Choice) was Unlawful, or just Ground of our Separation.  
§. 4. Answer, 1. Among sundry other things then started, those you speak of were indeed mentioned, and I gave such Grounds of Resolutions of them, as seemed sufficient to myself, and the Protestant Auditors. And I gave more than you had a Mind of, for when I was laying down the Terms of Christian Communion, you fling off from the Consideration of it, saying these Words, You now enter into the Merits of the Cause! As if that was no time or place for it. And this the Auditors say, They very well remember.  
§. 5. 2. Your great Undertaking is well worth observing. You take no less upon you, than to maintain for just and lawful, every Term the Roman Church requires to her Communion. Your Province is Wide, and requires an Universal skill in the Controversies between the two Churches, as will thus appear. (1.) She requires the Belief of all those Articles your Councils have defined to be Matter of Faith. And these will be found not a few, if we compare Pope Pius his, with the Ancient Creeds. (2.) She requires an Assent to, and Compliance with your whole Worship. Now each of these Articles you are, it seems, furnished to maintain, as also the whole frame of your Worship: and this not against me only, but also against Dr. Wr. Mr. P. and (for aught I know) all Comers.  
§. 6. Sir, I love courage in any Man, but I love Caution too. Pray tell me, How it happens, that in your Study of Theology, for full twenty years in our Communion, you were not able to find one of their distinguishing Articles defensible; and now in One years' time see them all perspicuous and surely founded. Your concern to search for truth was the same before, as lately, your Purse enabled you to buy Books, and your Education and Parts to read them, and you will not, I suppose, be Unwilling We should believe you weighed the Arguments on both sides. Pray then tell us, how, all at once, you happened to find all those Points we call Popery, to be Warranted by Divine Authority.  
§. 7. If you be inspired, I am sure to have the worse in contending with you. If you be not, I have no reason to dread your Challenge.  
§. 8. But I have found out your strength; you can justify all your particular Points with a few begged general words, viz. We are the only Catholic Church, and therefore whatsoever We teach for Faith, cannot sail of being true. And what we require as necessary, cannot fail of being done.  
§. 9 I confess you are able at this rate to baffle all the Protestants in the World, and on that Score may dare us, even from Dan to Beersheba. But we only smile at such impotent conceits.  
I have set forth the Matter of this last part of your Letter, though our present Controversy is not touched in it, that You may have no Colour to Complain, I have suppressed any thing of Yours.  
§. 10. It was my only business to present You with a View, of the Feeble Estate of Your Church, which I hope I have performed, and so rest,  
Yours, etc.  
FINIS.