Exomologesis, or, A faithfull narration of the occaision and motives of the conversion unto Catholick unity of Hugh-Paulin de Cressy, lately Deane of Laghlin &c. in Ireland and Prebend of Windsore in England now a second time printed with additions and explications by the same author who now calls himself B. Serenus Cressy, religious priest of the holy order of S. Benedict in the convent of S. Gregory in Doway.

CHAP. XIV.

Answer to the Texts produced by Mr. Chillingworth out of the Gospells of S. John and S. Luke.

1. AS for those passages produced by Mr. Chillingworth out of the Gospells, and, as he thought, fully to his purpose, and first to that taken out of the conclusion of S. Iohns Go∣spell, where it is said,

these things were written that ye might believe in the Sonne of God, and that believing ye might have life.

Besides the former demonstrations that S. Iohn writ onely of our Saviours life and death, and even therein omitted many things of extreame mo∣ment, which are mentioned by the other E∣vangelists, and all things revealed after Christs Ascension by the Comforter, which were far from being unnecessary: And besides the so necessary distinction of things necessary in respect of the object and subject so oft ap∣ply'd before; I answer particularly to the phrase of this quotation that it does not prove that these things alone are sufficient for such an effect, but onely that these are some of the principall ones necessary: For it is ordinary in Scripture to ascribe the effect of a concate∣nation of causes to some more especiall ones alone, either thereby to shew the extraordinary vertue and necessity of them above the rest, or to

imply that such vertues cannot be, at least in perfection, alone, but are alwaies accompanyed with the rest. So our Saviour (Mat. cap 5.) pro∣mises Beatitude to each single Christian vertue, which indeed is the effect of them all meeting together. And so that speech of S. Paul (Rom. 10.) is to be understood,

If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt be∣lieve in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And againe, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Indeed nothing is more ordi∣nary in Scripture then such Phrases, I will therefore absteine from an unnecessary multi∣plication of such passages, concluding this with two like expressions of the same Evangelist, the first in the same Gospell, This is eternall life that they may know thee the onely true God, and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The other out of his first Epistle, which may with as good rea∣son prove it self alone, even without the Gospell, to be sufficient instruction to salvation. These things we write unto you that your joy may be full.

2. To the double quotation of S. Luke in the Prefaces to his Gospell, and the History of the Acts of the Apostles, both in effect saying the same thing, namely that in his Gospell he he had written〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉of all things that Jesus did or taught, it is already answered. And be∣sides that this speech is hyperbolicall appeares not onely from S. Iohns Gospell, which relating both the facts and speeches of our Saviour, speakes notwithstanding, but very briefly and of a very few things mentioned by S. Luke or any other Evangelist: but likewise from

another passage of the same, S. Luke immedi∣ately following the quotation out of the Acts, where he sayes that during the forty dayes that our Saviour remained on earth from his Resur∣rection to

his Ascension he appeared to them and instructed them in the things concerning the Kingdome of God,

very few of which instructions are mentioned by S. Luke.