_Prot._ Why, such a submission of Judgment and Assent I suppose you will presently yield to me in any thing, whereof you are convinced by me; may this future Council then challenge no further Duty from you? why then should the Church be troubled to call it? _Soc._ [57]_Though this Future Council also should err, yet it may afford Remedy against Inconveniences; and one great Inconvenience being, Breaking the Church's Peace; this is remedied by its Authority_, if I only yield the Obedience of Silence thereto. _Prot._ But if your Obedience oblige not to _silence_ concerning Councils past, because of your new Evidences, neither will it to a future, if you think it also doth err; and either these Evidences remain still unsatisfied, or these satisfied, yet some other new ones appear to call for a new Consideration. _Soc._ [58]_Because it may also err, it follows not it must err; and it is probable that it shall not err, when the former Error is thus discovered, and if the Council proceed lawfully, be not overawed,_ &c.[59] But however, if I ought upon this review to be restrained to _silence_, yet, I not convinced of the truth of its Decree, this Silence is the uttermost that any future Council, after its rejecting my Reasons, can justly exact of me; and not _belief_, or _assent_, at all: It may not oblige me, that I should relinquish that you call _Socinianism_ at all, but that, not divulge it; whereas now by the Acts of _former_ Councils (I would gladly know upon what rational ground) an _Anathema_ is pronounced against me, if I do not believe the contrary, and I am declared to stand guilty of _Heresie_ meerly for retaining this Opinion; which retaining it is called _obstinacy_ and _contumacy_ in me, after the Councils contrary _Definition_. [41] _p._ 515, 516. [42] _See before_, §. 13. [43] §. 13. [44] _See Baronius._ A. D. 318, 319. [45] §. 478. [46] _p._ 60. [47] _Ib._ §. 10. [48] _Whitby_, _p._ 15. _Stillingfleet_, _p._ 506, 537. [49] §. 32. _n._ 5. & §. 33. _consid._ 5. _n._ 1. [50] _Dr. Ferne, Case between the Churches_, _p._ 48, 49. & _Division of Churches_, _p._ 45. [51] _p._ 666. [52] _A. B. Laud_ 245. [53] _Id._ _p._ 227. [54] _Stillingfl. p._ 479, 292. [55] _See before, Disc_. 3. §. 34, _&c._ [56] _De Baptismo_, _l._ 2. _c._ 3. [57] _Stillingfl. p._ 542. [58] _Stillingfl. ibid._ [59] _Id. p._ 526. CONFERENCE IV. His Plea, for his not being guilty of _Heresie_. _That he cannot rightly according to Protestant Principles, be accused as guilty of_ Heresie, _for several reasons._ 1. _Because Protestants holding Heresie to be an_ obstinate _defence of some error against a fundamental, he thinks from hence his tenent freed from being an Heresie, as long as in silence he retains it, unless he engage further, to a publick pertinacious maintaining thereof._ §. 23.