CHAP. XIII. Understand what they mean, when they call to you for a Judge of Controversies. How far a Judge
CHAP. XIII. Understand what they mean, when they call to you for a Judge of Controversies. How far a Judge is necessary, and who.
D etect. 4. Understand what the Papists mean when they are still calling to you for a Judge of Controversies.
If you would dispute with them, they are presently asking you, [Who shall be the judge?] and persuading you that it is in vain to dispute without a living Judge: for every man will be the Judge himself; and every man's cause will be right in his own eyes, and all the world will be still at odds till we are agreed who shall be the Judge.
To help you to see the sense of this deceit, and then to confute it; 1. You may easily observe that this is the plain drift of all, to persuade you to make them your judges, and yield the cause instead of disputing it. For it is no other judge but themselves that they will admit. Yield first that the Pope or his Council is the judge of all controversies, and then its folly to dispute against them: so that if you will yield them the cause first, they will then dispute with you after.
2. But what is to be said to the pretense of the Necessity of a Judge? I answer, 1. Its against all reason and experience to think that all enquiries or
disputes are vain, unless there be a Judge to decide the case. A Judge is a Ruling decider; not to satisfy men's minds, so much as to preserve Order, and Peace, and Justice in the Society. But there are thousands of cases to be privately discussed, that we never need to bring to a Judge. Every
Husbandman, and Tradesman, and Navigator, and other Artificer doth meet with doubts and difficulties in his way which he laboreth to Discern, and satisfieth himself with a Judgment of Discretion without a Ruling Judge.
We eat, and drink, and clothe ourselves, and follow our daily labors without a Judge, though we meet with controversies in almost all, what meat or drink is best for quality or quantity, and a hundred like doubts. Men do marry, and build, and buy, and sell, and take Physic, and dispatch their greatest worldly business without a Judge. Judges are only for such controverted cases as cannot well be decided without them, to the attaining of the Ends of Government.
2. Is it not against the daily practice of the Papists to think or say that all disputes and controversies must have a Judge? Who is the Judge between the Nominals, Reals and Formalists, the Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits, in all those controversies which have Cartloads of Books written on them? Their Pope or Councils dare not Judge between them. Do they not daily dispute in their Schools among themselves without a Judge? And still write books against one another without a Judge?
3. Understand well the use and differences of Judgment. The sentence is but a means to the execution: and Judges cannot determine the mind and will of man: but preserve outward Order, if men will not see the truth themselves. Me thinks the Jesuits that are so eager for free will, should easily grant that the Pope by his definition cannot determine the Will of man. And they see that Heretics remain Heretics, when the Pope hath said
all that he can: And if he can cure them all by his determinations, he is much to blame that he doth not. And if a man's mind be to be settled, an Infallible Teacher is fitter than a Judge. Judgment then being for Execution, when you ask, Who shall be the Judge? I answer that Judgment is either total, absolute and final: or it is only to a certain particular end, limited, and subordinate, from which there is an Appeal. In the former case, there is no Judge but Christ, and the Father by him. No absolute decision can be made till the great Judgment come; and then all will be fully and finally decided.
And for the limited present Judgments of men, they are of several sorts, according to their several Ends. When the question is, Who shall be corporally punished as a Heretic? The Magistrate is Judge; For coercive punishment being his work, the Judgment must be his also. But when the question is, Who shall be excommunicated as an Heretic, as God's Law hath told us who in specie, and so is the Rule of decision about individuals: so to try individual persons, and cases according to this Law, belongs to the Governors of the Church: but not to the Governors of other Churches a thousand miles off, that never received such an authority, and are not capable of the work: but to the Governors of the Church in which the party hath Communion, and into which he shall at any time intrude and seek communion. And all men have a judgment of discerning that are concerned in the Execution.
So that if a disputing Papist will say that his business is not to Dispute with you, but to Excommunicate, or hang, or burn you for a Heretic, then I confess, its all the reason in the world that you should first agree of the Judge. But why the Pope should be the Judge, I know not, unless it be in his own charge.