among the Baptized Churches and yet whether there be not clear Texts for the religious observation of it Act. 20. 7. Also whether it he not absurd for you to ask for clear Texts to prove unwritten things Also whether Rurgatory and the Real Presence as you hold them is not plainly destructive to some Articles of the Christian Faith Qu. 6. Antiq. 6. VVhether Universality both for time and place be not an evident mark of the true Church What Church can you name that hath that mark And whether the Woman that John saw was not Rome And whether her Cup was not universally received so that all Nations were drunk thereby Qu. 7. Antiq. 7. Whether you have really this mark that is whether you can fetch out of all Ages and Nations Professors of your Religion in particular you are desired to name but one or two in the first six hundred years after Christ of your Profession for example such as held the sole-sufficiency of Scripture for deciding Controversies and denied the lawfulness and usefulness of Infant-Baptism Whether any man can shew this mark as it is here call'd for without the help of humane History and whether humane History be a rule or ground for divine Faith And whether humane Histories especially those of the first three hundred after Christ were not most if not all burnt which concerned the Church and whether those that remain are not contradictory one to another Also whether Infant-Baptism was so much as heard of in the first hundred and then how could any be named that denied the usefulness thereof Also whether a Church whose gathering constitution and government is answerable to the Scripture be not the true Church of Christ And whether the Churches of the Baptists do not therein exceed all other whatsoever Thus Reader I have given thee some account of the causes why I publish this Treatise I desire thee to peruse it diligently If in any thing the Truth be dishonoured through any Error maintained by me of which yet I do solemnly profess I am not conscious to my self then do not forbear to blame me in a christian sort only if thou perceivest me deficient in point of Language and Method I desire thee to bear with that for I am one that gets my bread by the labour of my hands and never saluted the Schools to gain the knowledge of their Arts. From the Common-Goal in the Castle of Lincoln the 10th of the 11 month commonly called January 1662. Farewel TO THE Nameless Author OF THE VII QUERIES And in him to all the SONS of PAPAL ROME In the County of LINCOLN HItherto the things pertaining to Religion as they concern the Baptized Congregations commonly called Anabaptists and you that are commonly called Papists have been very little controverted And whether it shall ever please God to try his Peoples Faith and Stedfastness by your open opposition as he hath done it by others I may not presume to determine nor doubt I but if it shall so fall out he will advance his Truth thereby It is most certain that of those many wayes whereby the antient path of the Gospel hath for a long time been opposed there is not found any more potent than yours and the rather because your subtilty is utterly unknown to the generality of Christians in this Age and Nation where your Religion hath as it were lain dormant for many years The most dangerous stratagem wherewith you usually assail your opposits is your denyal of the Scripture c. the high doom of Judgment in matters of Faith and ascribe that dignity to your selves under pretence of your being the Church wherein if you conquer any one your work is as it were wholly accomplished Whereupon I have here presented to the world somewhat of your skill in this important Question Whether we are to resolve all Differences in point of Religion only out of the written Word of God yea I have faithfully transcribed your last Reply to my Answers which contains the sum of what you said in all your other Papers Whereby the Reader will discern if I think right wisdom used to the hurt of them that have received it I have forborn at this time to publish all that hath passed between us about the seven Queries partly for that one thing is oft repeated in our several Papers and partly and indeed especially for that it is to little purpose to controvert any particular point of Religion till we be agreed about the Judge that must determine our Differences Now whereas you do ascribe this Prerogative to your selves under pretence of your being the Church of Christ I have therefore laid down several Reasons by which it may appear that you are not the Church and so not that Judge whereunto you pretend to be so willing to adhere I have likewise shewed that we your opposits have the true claim to the title of Christ's Church that so if you will appeal to her you must then appeal to us which yet we believe you will not be perswaded to nor indeed do we desire you should whilst this is the Question Whether we or you be the Church No we are content to say with Augustine Ask not us in this case we will not ask you but let this matter be tryed by the Scripture yea saith he let the Prophets Christ and his Apostles be Judge Yea we say further in his words Let matter with matter cause with cause reason with reason counted by authority of the Scriptures not proper to any but indifferent Witnesses to both parts My final Answer to the first of the seven Queries I have here published with as little alteration or addition as possibly I could to give the Reader a true understanding of the matters in difference And if you publish any thing hereupon I desire no fairer dealing from you than you have in this case from me I have seriously considered what should be the design of your Queries and hitherto it appears to be chiefly to exalt the authority of mens Traditions above the lively Oracles of God the Scriptures For though it should be granted which you can never prove that there hath continued a true Church at Rome ever since it was there planted yet would it not follow that all which your Church holdeth under the title of Ecclesiastical Tradition must needs be obeyed by us for it is certain that the Jews did retain the state of a true Church when yet their Traditions however by them accounted were but the Traditions of men which both the Prophets and Christ himself termed vain Worship especially such of them as made void the Commands of God as we are sure many of yours do and therefore as Christ said to them Why do you transgress the Command of God by your Tradition the same we are humbly bold to say to you when you ask us why we transgress your Traditions for surely of none can it more fitly be said than of you that laying
Truth together with the help of right Reason in a way of subserviency to those divine directions Or if the word Controversies shall relate only to all such Controversies as fall within the compass of the Church that then to the former means we are to joyn the living Voice and Authority of the Church in present being assembled with her Pastours as the ordinary means appointed of God to terminate strife in the Churches But if the Division in the Church be so great as that it be not this way decissive or the Doubt so secret as not this way to be resolved there is not then a better way than for both Parties to reason it out till Truth and Innocency do prevail as the two Tribes and an half did with the other Tribes of Israel and prevailed Joshua 22. or in some doubtful cases the use of Lots may be admitted for the resolution of them Acts 1. PAPIST It is worth observing how many windings and turnings you have to avoid the difficulty of this Query Whether we are to resolve all differences in point of Religion only out of the written Word of God First you leave out the word only in which lay the very knot of the difficulty 2. Then you give me a piece of an Answer and keep in the living voice of the Church as a reserve for your Second Paper 3. When you are shewed how you for sake your old fort the sole sufficiency of Scripture as if you were afraid to come too near us you give back again and do your worst to discredit this living voice of the Church so that in effect it stands but for a meer cipher as I foresaw it would when it came once to the scanning 4. Upon second thoughts finding your error by putting the Query What is become of the living voice of the Church you shuffle again and would gladly make something of it but this something in the end falls to just nothing as I shall make it further appear by ripping up the particulars of this your last Answer BAPTIST I have used no windings to avoid the difficulty of the first Query but you are to know that when I first answered it I took the word Controversie to relate only to such Controversies as depend between such persons as deny each other to have any present right to either the Name or Priviledges of the Church And indeed I do not see how any other sense can be made of this Query for under that word WE I suppose you included no more but your self and Church on the one party and us to whom you sent the Queries on the other party and we well know that you account us no members of the Church and you likewise know that we have the same opinion of you but when your Observations or Second Paper took into the Query all Controversies which fall within the compass of the Church as such I could do no less than tell you that my Answer did not exclude the living voice of the Church in such cases but that my Answer doth only exclude every such voice as exalteth it self above the Spirit speaking in the Scriptures And whereas in your Third Paper you told me That to appeal to Councils and Fathers is a clear way to agree all our differences I told you that this is a very cloudy way and that because they are contrary to themselves and one another 2. Till they be agreed they cannot agree us 3. And sith you take not the Scripture as being of any authority till they as the Church give it you I demanded by what you would agree them in their divisions 4. And to shew you how they are divided I gave you divers Instances concerning their divisions as also touching the corruption which hath been found in divers Popes PAPIST 1. I had no reason to take notice of your excluding from the living voice of the Church every voice exalting it self above the voice of Scripture because it was a very needless Exception since the Church arrogates no such power but only to interpret the voice of Scripture 2. Why this way of taking the sense of Scripture from the living voice of the Church should be so cloudy as you say it is I do no more understand than that the living voice of a Judge should be a cloudy way to understand the Law by As for your Riddles how we are to reconcile the Fathers and Councils when they seem to clash with their own Assertions but by having recourse to Scripture I Answer briefly That General Councils have no such contradictions as you speak of And as for the holy Fathers when there is any such difficulty in any one of them we must look upon the rest what they say and to follow their unanimous consent for if we take them singly no doubt they have erred and these errors we know by their dissenting from the rest for otherwise certainly the authority of any one of the antient Fathers when he expounds Scripture or relates the Christian practice of his time and is not censured or contradicted by the rest or condemned by the Church in a General Council is of greater authority to decide Controversies in point of Religion or to know the true meaning of Scripture than any thing you have alledged as we shall see by and by when I have first examined what you bring to discredit the Fathers and Councils Against the Fathers you first bring St. Aug. retract 21. contradicting himself by saying that Matth. 16. Christ built not his Church upon Peter but upon Peter 's Faith sure you read not St. Aug. for he there expounds that place of Christ himself and not of the Faith of St. Peter nor doth he recal his expounding it elsewhere of St. Peter but leaves both Expositions as probable concluding thus Hunc autem sententiam quae sit probalitur eligat lector Is this fair dealing Again you bring in St. Aug. contra Petil. c. 2 3 4. as contrary to himself and me because he teaches That the Church is to be found out by the words of Christ But though I doubt you cannot make this appear in any of these three Chapters yet were it nothing to the purpose for we deny not but the Church is to be found out by these clear marks whereby the holy Scripture hath deciphered her Next you alledge St. Chrysost in Psal 22. and St. Ambrose de Sacrament calling the Blessed Sacrament a similitude or figure of Christ's Body and Blood I Answer 1. That it is the Opinion of the Learned that neither St. Chrysost nor indeed any Grecian could be Author of that work 2. I say the Sacrament may be truly called the similitude of Christ's Body and Blood because it is not given in the form of flesh and blood of which men would have a horror as the same St. Amb. observes but under the Forms of Bread and Wine The next is St. Dinis Eccl. Herarch but quoting no place I have not yet met
doings do only tend to the destruction of all Faith making every thing doubtful and the effect is the ushering in of all uncleanness on the one hand or if men miss this snare they are catched in another viz. to walk at random as their own or other mens fancy leads them This is evident by what we have seen in the Ranters on the one hand and the Papists and Quakers on the other Let us trace this matter a little further thus The Papists Traditions most if not all of which have been committed to Writing several hundreds of years ago must speak for themselves are unquestionable of themselves must challenge no ground but themselves to stand upon But the sacred Scripture which hath especial Promise from God for its preservation Psal 12. must have none of these high priviledges allowed it Is not this a most peccant Assertion Again Peter and Paul must be no Judges of Controversies in Religion as they speak to us in their Epistles but the Popes of Rome dead long ago and now only speak in their Writings yet they must be our infallible Judges in these Controversies The great Council of Apostles Elders and Brethren Acts 15. can be no Judge of any Controversie though their Decrees are yet extant among us but the Council of Trent who only speak in their Decrees must be our Judge and that so as from their Judgments no appeal can be admitted The Apostolical Council sends forth their Decrees in the Name of the holy Ghost and themselves and in those their Decrees they prohibit the eating of blood and strangled things c. But the Papal Councils will send forth a Decree directly opposite to this and yet sign'd with these powerful words Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis If we appeal in this matter to the Apostolical Council they may not be permitted to pronounce a Sentence decissive But from the sentence of the Papal Council we must in no wise appeal Can any thing be said more unworthily Thus then First the godly Reader may perceive That whether he be able to answer all the cunning Objections that men by reason of the long experience they have had in the wayes of deceit have found out yet he hath an Argument of NECESSITY wherewith to oppose their subtilty And Secondly he hath the advantage of all their own objections against themselves yea against their Church Tradition and all that they stand upon Being seasonably retorted upon them Wherefore I shall conclude with the Psalmist's words Psal 64. 5 6 7 8 9. They encourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying snares privily they say Who shall see them They search out iniquities they accomplish a diligent search both the inward thoughts of every one of them and the heart is deep But God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded So they shall make their own tongues to fall upon themselves all that see them shall flee away And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God for they shall wisely consider of his doings THE SECOND PART SHEWETH That the present Papal Church of Rome is not the Church of Christ for divers important Causes or Reasons VVE have heard of how dangerous a Consequence that Papal Opinion is which leads them to set up their own Authority under pretence of their being the Church above the holy Scripture insomuch as they allow it no Authority till it be delivered to us for God's Word by their Church so that by this Doctrine we must find their Church before we can find the Word of God as it is contained in the Scripture Upon which Consideration we shall endeavour to shew That the present Papal Church is not the true Church of Christ and therefore what Power soever the Church hath yet they cannot have it Because they are not the Church of Christ The First Reason The present Papal Church of Rome cannot possibly prove her self to be the Church of Christ Therefore she is not the Church of Christ The First Reason maintained THe Consequence of the Argument no understanding man can deny for unless a party pretending to be the Church of Christ can some wayes sufficiently prove that they are his Church they cannot reasonably blame any body that refuses so to account of them And for the Antecedent namely that it is impossible for the present Papal Church to prove her self the Church of Christ it is evident from this ground viz. They make both the Scripture and all other Writings depend on their Church for their Authority and therefore they must prove themselves to be the Church without the help of any authentical or authoritative Writings which thing is impossible for them to do Being thus divested of the help of all Records as is more fully shewed above there remains now nothing for them to lean upon but their own Evidence or the Tradition of their Fore-fathers not that which is contained in any Records but only that which hath been delivered by word from man to man c. But alas what Tradition is this they speak of Not the Tradition of the Church to us till the persons delivering the same be found to be the Church which as before they cannot be found to be without the Scripture And for their own Evidence that may not prove them to be the Church to those that contend with them it cannot avail them sith each party contending in this case will and may as reasonably as the Papists look that their own Testimony should be as available for these as the other for those It is as vain here to tell us they are the Church because the true marks of the Church do agree to the Papal Church and none else For first the true marks of the Church are confessed by the Papists to be found in the Scripture which Scripture they receive not but from the authority of their Church yea their present Church so that till the Scripture can tell us authoritatively which be the marks of the Church no Church can be found by those marks nor can the Scripture tell us of those marks authoritatively till Rome as a Church give it us for God's Word So then Rome must be found the Church before there be any marks to find her by which is impossible As for example To clear this matter further the Papists say That Holiness is a mark of the true Church But now set the Holy Scripture aside and how shall I know holiness from unholiness without the Scripture Here the Papists being in a strait rather than they will let the Law of God or the Scripture have the preheminence do Answer thus That we have a Law in our Consciences which dictates what is good and what is otherwise and by this Law even a Heathen may judge our Church holier than any other Congregations of Christians What a miserable plunge of Heathenism or Quakerism are they brought to here How do they know
that a Heathen may by the Law of Conscience judge their Church to be more holy than ANY other Congregation of Christians Were they ever Heathens to know this But alas what holiness can a Heathen judge of Surely not that which is an infallible mark of the true Church for this Spiritual matter is foolishness to the Natural man nor can he know it because 't is spiritually discerned It is true there is a Holiness discernable by the Law of our Consciences But this only is not an infallible mark that any Society is the Church of Christ nor did ever any man I am perswaded hold forth such a Doctrine that was a faithful Minister of the New Testament or Spirit Again What of this kind of Holiness whereof a Heathen as such can judge is there found among the Papists which may not be found among the Baptists yea among those that are opposite to both as the Quakers and others yea among the very Jews and Turks may be found as much of this kind of Holiness as among the Papists if any credit may be given to Histories Sometimes the Papists do object the Creed as sufficient to demonstrate a man to be a Member of the Church though he know not whether there be any Scripture But I Answer How shall this be proved to be the Creed it must not be its own evidence for then the Scripture may as well speak for it self which the Papists will not allow nor can the Church of Rome confer any authority upon the Creed till they be found to be the Church So then this is the Conclusion Rome must be found to be the Church before there be a Creed I do therefore humbly desire these few Observations may be seriously thought upon by all sober men but especially the Papists that so men may give to the holy Scriptures that which is proper to them that is That they may speak without controul both for themselves and every thing else of a Religious consideration or else all Volumns of the Antients and Societies of men pretending to Christianity as things stand in our dayes must depart into utter silence The Second Reason The present Papal Church of Rome hath no Baptism Therefore she is not the Church of Christ The Second Reason maintained BY the word Baptism in the Argument I mean only the Baptism of Water in the Name of the Father c. or which is all one the Baptism of Repentance for the Remission of sins Now that the present Papal Church of Rome hath not this Baptism is evident by this Argument taken from their own Confession viz. The Baptism of the true Church is found in the Scripture But the Baptism of the present Papal Church of Rome is not grounded upon nor mentioned in the Scripture Therefore the present Papal Church of Rome hath no Baptism The first Proposition is most clear from Matth. 28. 19 20. Act. 2. Act. 8. Act. 9. Act. 16. Act. 18. Act. 19. Act. 22. 16. Rom. 6. Gal. 3. 27. Col. 2. 11 12. Heb. 6. 1 2. 1 Pet. 3. 21. And that the Papists Baptism is not found in the Scripture I prove thus Because they themselves do confess that Infant Baptism is not mentioned in the Scripture nor grounded upon the Scripture nor any Scripture for it See to this purpose the Works of Bellarmine and a Book entituled An Antidote written by S. N. a Popish Doctor as also T. B. his End to Controversie In which Books you will find the very words which I have repeated Adde hereunto the Answer which I received from the Author of the Seven Queries when I asked him what Controversies in Religion he could resolve without the written Word of God he assigned Infant Baptism as one that was so to be resolved So then we have it pro confesso from the Papists own mouths That their Baptism which is Infant Baptism is a Scriptureless-Baptism Therefore say I it is no Baptism No Baptism I say because the Church hath but one Baptism of Water and it is mentioned in the Scripture and grounded upon it and much Scripture found for it so is not Infant Baptism which is the Baptism of the present Papal Church Therefore the Papal Baptism is no Baptism How can they defend themselves Will they say the Church hath a Scripture-Baptism and an unwritten Baptism This they must say and prove or else deny their Infant Baptism But secondly The present Papal Church is so adulterated in the manner of the Administration of Baptism as that had they a true subject for Baptism yet they would be found to have no Baptism This will appear as clear as the Light from the Papists own confession for they grant that the antient and primitive way of baptizing was by dipping the party baptized over the head and ears in Water and that it was their Church which changed this way to a little sprinkling upon the forehead This is plainly to be seen in a Book entituled Certamen Religiosum This bold Change which men without any allowance from God have made in this Ministration of Baptism is directly against the Scripture Mat. 3. 16. Mark 15. 9. John 3. 23. Act. 8. 38 39. Rom. 6. In all which places it's evident that our Lord Jesus John Baptist and the other Baptists of those times did so understand the mind of God in respect of the manner of the Administration of Baptism as that they thought it could not be done without so much Water as they might go into both the Person baptizing and the Person to be baptized And now do not all that will presume to satisfie themselves in this thing with a few drops of Water put on the face only from a Man's fingers ends or out of a Glass in the Midwifes pocket lay great folly and ignorance to the charge of Christ and his primitive followers doubtless such as is not less than the folly of that man that hath occasion only for one Gill of Water and he may take it up at the side of the Brook and yet will needs wade into the middle of a River to take it up or a man that hath occasion to wash his hands only which he may perform very commodiously without wetting his foot and yet is so simple that he will needs go into the middle of the River to that purpose especially such a River where there is much Water I say the practice of Sprinkling which the Papists and others use if that answer the mind of God in the case of Baptism doth even thus reflect upon Christ and the Christians in those dayes But let our Saviours practice herein be justified and all such practices as tend to the rendring it ridiculous condemned The Papists only Reserve for the defence of Infant Baptism is this They say it is an Apostolical Tradition that is a Precept delivered by the Apostles Word but not mentioned in their Writings This I shall shew to be utterly false for divers important Reasons First No