time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
hugely augmented Insomuch that this new clergy made up of fallen priests and votaries fell to writing stifly against their ecclesiastical pastour and the laiety drew themselvs into bodies against their temporal superiours in every place those in Germany against the emperour those in Holland against their King they in France against theirs nay the contagion flew so swiftly about Europe like wild fire in dry stubble that ere King Philip could get into Spain his subjects there were corrupted many of them and hissing hot unto battle but he was a wise prince and well understood the unquiet genius of heresie and therfore took a speedy cours with som for an ensample and terrour to the rest and so preserved his kingdom but the wars in France were long and dangerous those of Germany and Holland hardly yet ended It was almost twelv years before this strang confluence of people could agree together by what name to be owned till a chance gave it them thus There was congregated for the catholick Churches peace a solemn diet at Spire in Germany against which and the articles there agreed upon Luthers new troop made a joint unanimous Protestation appealing from the diet to the emperour although their after comportment shewed that they did indeed no more respect the emperour than his diet upon which general and hearty Protestation of their own they were pleased ever after to call one another Pretestants Yet sooner than they had well agreed in the name they so much disagreed in doctrine ambitious heads as all of them were emulating each one as great a name and fame as Luther had whom they both equalled in renown and place whilst they all remained priests in the catholick Church and now separated injoyed as great fulnes of the spirit as himself that they did not only set up several wayes and sects amongst themselvs but inveighed and wrote bitterly one against another even with more virulency than they had aforetime used against the Church in the beginning of their discession And now there was up and down amongst the Protestants here Osianders church there Stancars there Melanchthons here a body of rigid Lutherans there soft ones here Calvinists enemies to both here Illyricans there Valentine-gentilists here Plenilutherans there Semilutherans there Antilutherans here the disciples of Oecolampadius there of Suinglius c. all which did so eagerly quarrel about the matters of Reformation that a sober man could not have the patience either to hear their sermons or read their books Since that first division of Luther which is now above a hundred years there have been several times both in Germany and other places many great meetings by Protestant divines of all sorts and sides to bring all parties to an union but it could never be effected to this day which is a shrewd sign as Luther spake ingenuously before the duke of Saxony that the concertation was not begun for God nor yet for God shall ever be ended An ambition they have by their very discession and novelties to advance their name and worldly contents being so opposite as it is unto yielding or submission to anothers judgment will both make schisms and maintain them without controul nor can it be expected he should yield to his fellow servant or condisciple who contemns the maister and doctour and chief pastour of Christianity §. 19. Item INto our Kingdom of England this new invented protestancy had found access exceeding difficil if not altogether impossible all our Kings even from the Conquerour to that day being ever most vigilant that no innovation should arise to the endangering as those wise princes apprehended not only the spiritual but politick state under what ever pretens it should begin and the whole land carrying throughout the world so eminent a renown both for their piety and learning and zealous long continued affection to the catholick religion above all other nations when an odde accident set the doors wider open here than either in Germany France or Netherlands for its more free and copious ingress and it was this King Henry the eight a valorous and noble prince who had also set forth a book against Luther and his new coined protestancy for which zealous and Christian act of his the Pope conferred upon him the title of Defensor fidei wherein our Kings glory to this day even this so great a prince stood at that time so vehemently affected unto one of his subjects Anne Bullen that for her he ran himself into a hundred troubles and his whole kingdom into irreparable miseries To the end he might marry with her he endeavoured a divorce from his good wife Queen Catharine with whom he had lived honourably and peaceably twenty years together which with most earnest importunity for six whole years together when he could not obtain of the Pope he renounced him and by the insinuation of some Lutherans who by this time had crept into the land he made himself Pope and head of the Church within the territories of England and so he dispensed with himself and made that divorce by his own autority which the Pope could not do with his and married Anne whom a while after by the same autority he divorced again and cut off as King and Pope both Anne from his bed and Annes head from her shoulders Upon this strang act of the Kings declaring himself head of the Church never before known or heard of since Christianity first entered England for though Kings were ever honoured as nursing fathers of the Church yet head of influence to this mystical body of Christ is onely Jesus himself and head of government under him only that person who first begot us in Christ and in whom all the sacred hierarchy ends I say upon that strang act of his both King Henry and his whole kingdom was overthrown at one blow and laid prostrate under the feet of those men whom he had so gloriously triumphed of late and obtained thereby to the no small ornament of his crown the addition of a new title for now came flocking in out of Germany Geneva and the Netherlands whole swarms of reformers as thick as grashoppers by whom in a small time the Kings countenance being now set against catholicks who could never be brought to like of his divorce the land was so universally corrupted defaced and spoiled that within few years all the goodly monasteries nunneries abbeyes and their Churches were utterly dispeopled pillaged and ruined and millions of people of both sexes a sad sight to behold who had served God night and day in those their angelical retirements cast forth into the wide world to begin a secular worldly life many of them in their feeble old age when all their whole livelihood was taken from them The prey indeed was very great but it proved aurum Tolosanum neither King nor people was ever the richer for it general granaries as the monasteries then were making provision for all children to be born in the land
men for my name but who shall persever unto the end he shall be saved But I hope our countreymen will at length discern their own dangerous mistake and perceiv with me that the Popish Mass which is the old opostolical devotion merits not the hatred and mischief we have either wrought or intended the observers of it in our land Hitherto then I hope we have no reason to hate popery upon the account of their Messach which is indeed the chiefest piece of our division and occasion of the many contumelies we put upon them especially considering that in our own Communion so far as it goes we do but imitate great part of it and that in their very words § 23. B. V. Mary AL Catholiks I could ever see or hear or read of bear a most devout respect to the Virgin MARY whom others care not how they villify and dishonour either by their words or writings and I cannot but dislike this our uncivil carriage to say no wors of it as much as I do approve of their piety Surely that Virgin of whom God would be incarnate and with whom he lived so many years together must needs be a person of strang perfection and worthy of great esteem amongst all such as worship her Son and look upon him indeed as their Redeemer He that loves him that begets saith the good apostle loves him that is begotten and I should think he that worships him that is begotten must needs have some respect for her that bare him The blessed Virgin was her self so confident of this that she was bold to say Ecce enim ex hoo beat am me dicent omnes generationes all generations all nations saith she shall call me Blessed And surely if this be true and in gospel it passes for divine words we that instead of calling her Blessed presume so highly to villify and blaspheme her even in our publick streets for which in catholick countries we should be in danger of being stoned to death by the people show our selvs to be a nation that belongs not to the Magnificat Indeed all here amongst us are not so rude but such as be are neither punished nor questioned for it And what in the name of God hath the Virgin Mary don to us what ill or harm hath she ever wrought us that any English Christian should cast so many gibes and show so much disesteem to that blessed creatur whom the whole catholick world the angels of heaven nay our Lord himself and that great God that made heaven and earth have set in so high a place of honour Will our incivility as it hath no ground or reason admit likewise of no limits It may be feared that the spirit of Luther anisme is some very foul one for it hath moved the professours of it in several places unto most unseemly language and highest disesteem of very thing that is venerable Not only princes and prelates priests and altars shrines and sacrifice byshops and their sacred ordinations the real presence tribunal of our reconciliation and the like but the very saints and angels of heaven nay the most innocent blessed Maid whom the very Turks do honour to this day and that she may not be thought the wors of for that an angel from heaven saluted by the mandate and in the name of him who is primogeneal Life and substantial Truth with the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most beloved and Gratious escape not the lash of our lips and pens And yet this is not all neither Do not I know that the primitive protestants in forreign parts have uttered some openly some more obscurely in their writings many odde words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself although our more moderate Church of England I am confident hates them for it Did not Calvin taunt at his ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he crust the figtree that had not fruit upon it when he sought it if he had studied catholick divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation than that idle wicked one of his own Did not Michael Servetus that bold apostate Spanish youth speak openly amongst his fellow protestants in Geneva that he wondered that they had raised all their controversies so many as they had against the Church which is named the body of Christ and yet never a one against Christ the head of that body did not Valentine Gentile that unhappy Italian after he had revolted to Calvin take it ill that all the reformed Churches agreed yet with the papists in the beleef of a Trinity and with him sided Matheus Gribaldus Lismanin Francis David and Jacobus Paleologus though this last recanted afterward and returned happily to his catholick faith And who-knows not that Luther Brentius Calvin Suinglius yea and Erasmus too who though he yet remained catholick would be nibling now and then at Arrian and Socinianisme let fly many a secret dart at Christ and the sacred Trinity though they were not yet so bold as to profess openly with som others of their brethren whom they saw to suffer in their repute for it any such opinion till they found the world in a more forward disposition to accept it and all these bent their bowes and fitted their arrowes to the string that if not openly yet at least in the dark and in Lunâ as the prophet phrases it they might shoot and hit every thing that is sacred even Christ himself So true it is that he who loves him that begets loves him that is begotten and he that hates the one does not truly love the other But the penmen of our creed and gospel who made honourable mention of the Virgin Mary were of another spirit than we be that so much dishonour her although for fashion sake we read over those holy penmens words A certain protestant byshop did not many years ago examin a catholick child that stood before him if he could say his prayers the boy replying yes said first his Pater noster after that began his Ave Maria which catholicks use to repeat in memory of Christs incarnation at which words nay quoth the byshop let her alone let her alone we have nothing to do with her The child went on to his Creed and when he came to conceptus est de spiritus sancto natus ex he sodainly stopt and she is here again quoth the child she is here again my Lord what shall I do with her now you may let her pass quoth the byshop in your Creed but not in your prayers As though we might have faith but neither hope nor charity for her But if we seriously consider the spirit of those who wrote either our Gospel or Creed we shall find that of Roman catholicks to have a most near consanguinity with it and loving them we cannot hate these for the respect they bear his virgin Mother whom we all worship §. 24. Images IN all places where
Corinth most heartily in his letters requesting their praiers and he esteemed it as good as if he had himself been by and heard it and yet the catholick altar is not so far from the people as Corinth is from Rome Wherefore in St. Pauls judgment one may pray for another not onely priest for the people but people also for the priest without being understood or so much as either heard or seen Nor could St. Paul in his own reason ever deny the efficacy of those praiers which be made by one for another in any whatever language for it was all one to him what language the Romans spake and if he did reflect upon it he could not be ignorant that they spake not the language of Corinth when he wrote to them from thence that they should pray for him there at so great a distance But if any will yet be obstinate and object unto me that S. Paul himself even in his epistle he wrote to Corinth from Ephesus which was his first letter he sent to that people speaks there about the end of the same letter very much against their praying and prophesying in an unknown tongue he may know first that even the tongue of the Romans whose prayers notwithstanding S. Paul so earnestly requested at Corinth was an unknwn tongue to those that lived there and yet that wise apostle would not we may think contradict himself Secondly then what was the matter The busines was this There were in the primitive Churches up and down many gifts and gratuities bestowed upon Christian people by that holy Spirit who would thereby exalt the gospels glory as extemporary prophesies working of miracles gift of tongues and the like and S. Paul hearing at Ephesus of some disorders in Corinth upon that account as those kind of gifts are possible to be abused he wrote to them about it to let them know that the spirit of Jesus for such his voluntary donations unto men was indeed to be praised but yet that Christians should not therefor place in those things their utmost glory and then to diminish further the huge esteem they had there of gifts and tongues before all other he lets them know that of all the other gifts that in particular was liable to the greatest inconveniences even far more than either wonder-working or prophecy This is the apostles drift as any one may see that understands a grave and sober letter But what is all this to any service of the Church But thirdly that I may make the thing yet a little plainer the Latin in which the Catholick service is kept is no unknown tongue and therefor that objection of no valiew against it There is no tongue in the world can be said absolutely either a known tongue or unknown but only with relation unto people and so every language in the world is in respect of som people a known tongue and in respect of others an unknown English is an unknown tongue to Vienna but not to London high Dutch is an unknown tongue to London but not to Vienna And therefor that we may conclude a tongue to be known or unknown we must compare it to the family or people in reference to whom it is used and no otherwise and that family or people must be considered not in any other respects if they have many but only in relation to that particular rank or order which refers unto such a language An English merchant living in Anwerp hath two languages which himself and family speaks English and Dutch and both of them in reference both to England and Holland jointly may be called both known tongues and unknown but in his busines with the English dutch is the unknown tongue in his Holland affairs english So the Pope as he is governour and lord of the city of Rome speaks Italian as all the other people there do and it is the only known tongue in that degree and order but as he is head of the whole Church spread over the earth which is a mystical body distinct from the body politick and hath a language of its own quite differing from the Italian that passes through Germany France and Spain both Indies and the Islands the north and south world wheresoever Christians live so he uses and speaks that general language which is latin and in that sens Italian is an unknown tongue and Latin only the known tongue of the Christian world So that in order to religion that one language that is spoken not in one corner but runs quite through the hous and is common to all as they be ranked in the series of Christianity wherein they are trained up by the father of the family and which in reference to religion he only speaks himself is the only known tongue in order to it and all other tongues unknown And so not latin but english not latin but dutch not latin but spanish is an unknown tongue to the Christian world for all these though they be the known languages of particular kingdoms which be but a corner of Christianity yet not they but latin is the known language of the whole Christian body and family through the world The hous of God is but one in it self although it be disperst over several nations and the language fitted for all the body must consequently be but one wherein all those nations are united and linked together exteriourly even as they be joined interiourly in faith which in that one tongue is carried up and down and conserved and all other tongues english french spanish be accidental to Christians as they be Christians even as the times and places of their abode be nor be they fastned unto them by their Christianity but by corporal birth and education which be contingent and altogether accidental to religion So then latin in reference to religion which for reasons above named must use one language is so far from being an unknown tongue that it is the only one known language of the Christian world united to Christian faith as the proper garment to a body by whose fashion it is discerned I know that a part of the Church useth greek in her Liturgy and som few people Hebrew as well as the generality does Latin But I mention only the latin tongue becaus my countrimen take notice only of that And all the three languages agree in this that they are segregated from vulgar use consecrated by the cross of the Meffiâ—s approved by the general pastour and equally liable to the present objection which is so trufatical that it casts not the least blemish upon popery for that custom and I hope all wife men will be of my mind Our land me thinks should thank the Pope for keeping his Mass and Psalter in such an unknown tongue For so our vulgar if they should be curious to see it yet can they neither be offended by what they hear nor so much as discern that our own English communion-book is drawn out of the
promises of future reward do voluntarily and of their own accord forsake the world and all worldly pleasures to serv God night and day in poverty humility and chastity and multitudes of others of a secular condition in several parts of the earth have rather chosen to live an afflicted life in this world contemned abused pillaged beaten put to death by their persecutours than to forsake that religion and these too as noble and wise persons many of them as any the earth hath had But if any will yet be contentious and maintain his hatred still against Popery I earnestly request he would seriously ponder these few following Queries which I borrowed of a friend It will not be deny'd but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church for this is not only by good St. Paul amply testified in his epistle to the said Romans but acknowledged also by Whitaker in his answer to Dr. Sanders by White in his defence of his way by Fulk and Reinolds and also by K. James in his speech to the Parliament This Church could not ceas to be such but she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism I. Apostasie is not onely a renouncing of the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a fall or fell thus II. Heresie is an adhesion to some private and singular opinion or errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrin of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common recived Doctrin of the Christian world I pray satisfie me as to these particulars viz. 1. By what General Councel was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against Her Or 3. By what authority was She otherwise reproved For If seems to me to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every one that hath a minde to condemn her III. Shisme is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church wherby the Band and communion held with som former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self by Schisme from any other body of faithful Christians or brake communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me as to these particulars 1. Whose company did She leave 2. From what body did She go forth 3. Where was the true Church which She forsook For it appears somwhat strange to me that a Church should be accounted schismatical when ther cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christ his time hath continued visible from whence She departed If these Queries were well pondered or if men would once beleev as most true it is that by irrefragable principles which all must needs acknowledg who will own a Christianity in general Popery may be proved to be as good a religion as the best then Facta est Lux. But this is a little beyond my intention which aims no further than only to put our passions to a demur for which it may suffice us to think that Popery is not ill And if I should yet say more and endeavour to prove it good those that be of that Way will say I speak too little and they who be not will think I say too much I had a purpos in the three last dialogues of my Reclaimed Papist to make Popery appear not only a good religion but the best and not only the best but the only sole Christianity which Christ planted upon earth and which every right reason that admits of Christ must needs approve But I hope I was therfore discouraged and hindred in that work that it might be left for som better hand and I should my self very much rejoyce to see it don It is now besides my purpos my paper also is already too much swelled my mind calls for freedom and my pen is dulled Acta est pars acroamatica sequitur moralis Fifth Chapter Moral topicks for charity and peace §. 31. Conclusion AS without the indifferency and moderation I have hitherto laboured to implant ther cannot be in us any capacity of a right understanding so ther be yet som moral topicks remaining which are apt to implant this moderation and indifferency as to consider first the sad precipices men have run themselves and others by their headiness and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits about religion secondly that the connatural excellency of a good Christian consists not in finding new waies to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practis the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selves thirdly that charity which the apostle makes to be the end and highest perfection of religion and indeed all vertue suggests good and moderate thoughts of our neighbour c. But these and such like topicks be a subject fitter for a pious preacher than a civil logician and so leav them What I should speak at this time unto any such purpos take it in the golden words and phrase of the honourable Lord Chancellour the Oratour of the Land Gentlemen the distempers of religion which have too too much disturbed the peace of this Kingdom is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and cement of affection and brotherly kindness and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and reveng And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question the divine nature exceedingly abhors somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as well as those who are in the wrong and leaves the latter more excusable than the former when men who find their manners and dispositions very conformable in all the necessary obligations of humane nature avoid one anothers conversation and grow first unsociable and then uncharitable to each other becaus one cannot think as the other doth And from this separation we intitle God to the patronage of and concernment in our fancies and distinction and purely for his sake hate one another heartily It was not so of old when one of the most antient Fathers of the Church tells us that love and charity was so signal and eminent in the primitive Christians that it even drew admiration and envy from their greatest adversaries Vide inquiunt ut invicem se diligunt Their adversaries in that in which they most agreed in their very prosecution of them had their passions and animosities among themselvs they were only Christians that loved and cherished and comforted and were ready to dye for one another Quid nunc dicerent illi Christiani si nostra viderent tempora sayes the incomparable Grotius How would they look upon our sharp and virulent contentions in the debates of Christian religion and the bloody wars that have proceeded from those contentions whilst every one pretended to all the marks which are to attend upon the true Church except only that which is inseparable from it Charity to one another My Lords and Gentlemen This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad howr when he hath considered the almost irreparable reproach the Protestant religion hath undergone from the divisions and distractions which have been so notorious within this Kingdom What pains he hath taken to compose them after several discourses with learned and pious men of different perswasions you may see by a declaration he hath published upon that occasion by which you see his great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren And I hope God will so bless the candour of his Majesty in the condescentions he makes that the Church as well as the State will return to that unity and unanimity which will make both king and people as happy as they can hope to be in this world If aught yet remain to be said in the heavenly words of blessed S. Paul I shall conclude it all Quosdam quidam posuit deus c. Some hath God set over us in his Church first apostles secondly prophets thirdly doctours then virtues then graces of healing opitulations gubernations sorts of tongues Are all apostles are all prophets are all doctours are all vertues have all men the grace of healings do all speak with tongues do all interpret But do you emulate the better graces And I do yet show unto you a more excelling way If I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am but as sounding brass and tingling cimbal And if I shall have prophesy and know all mysteries and all sciences and if I shall have all faith so that I can translate mountains and have not charity I am nothing c. This is the great rule of our happines and square of all perfection Et quicunque hanc regulam secuti fuerint pax super illos super Israel Dei FINIS
histories make mention and it is a pleasant speculation to consider it But the method and severall wais of enhancing fame by inventions and discoveries of truths prosecuted by contemplativ heads what and how various they have been in the Pagan world we may in part gather out of Aristotle Plato Lucretius M. Tullius Cicero and som other few monuments yet kept amongst us What they have been in the Christian world lives more fresh in our memories but these are of two sorts one in explication and defens of faith against all opposition possible to be made by any kind of adversaries Jew Heretick or Pagan and this hath been the emploiment of the most sublime eagles that ever the Christian Church had S. Austin Magister sententiarum Alensis S. Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure Gandavensis Scotus and the like The other in opposition to faith which rose up in severall ages for the exercise of this mystick Body who was in his own person not onely opposed by outward adversaries but deserted by his own I love those eminent Pagan wits and this commendation they have that they are our first masters in all our Sciences that they performed what they undertook to write most solidly acutely and exactly both for judgment clearnes and method and thirdly that they confuted one another for they were divided in opinions as well as we and it was expedient they should be so not in reviling words as we Christians do but in sober and purest reason although the arguments of their discours inferred somtimes very little to the confutation of an adversary becaus they often proceeded upon severall principles not ever rightly understood or at least for more particular advantage wilfully mistaken And in this method of sobriety do our two great Schollers the Lawyer and Physician write when they put forth treatises either one body of art against another or one member and person in particular against another in the same body So likewise did our subtile Schoolmen proceed five hundred years ago with no lesse sweetnes of spirit than profundnes of reason whose intention was to explicate and defend Christianity even in the way of Aristotles Philosophy by which the Pagans had for a thousand yeaâ—… opposed it to the much prejudice of Christian Religion which the Priests and Doctours of ancient times would not undertake to defend by a Philosophy they found so much tending to atheism and in so many things fals that is to say contrary to the principles and faith they had received from Jesus whose word they preferred before all the Philosophers reasons in the world These Schoolmen divided into divers branches by occasion of a severall interpretation of Aristotle either in the way of S. Thomas of Aquin the Dominican whose doctrine for the most part was followed in Cambridge or of subtile Scotus the Franciscan whose chair was at Oxford And in other parts of the Christian world they had their chairs erected according either as chance or favour pleased But all was then don with no less exact charity than sublime reason for they had nothing els to do in their Schools but onely by argument and disputation to try the grounds and solutions whether if a Pagan himself or others antagonist whose person every opponent represents should dispute against them they could then be able to come off in their defensions with applaus and honour and without prejudice of their Faith But when we come to view the opposite judgments in matters of religion commonly called heresies especially in this last age for the rest before these daies have perished by the prevalency of one party against which all the rest bandied together as these be very gross and homly disputes so are they mannaged on the opponents side with so much unseemly behaviour such unmanly expressions that discreet sobriety cannot but loath and abhorr to read them Not reason but defiances not charity but execrations not subtilties but downright defamations not civil respect but vilest disesteem not cool perswasion but precipitous condemnation fills each page we look on and fire and stones fly about where meeknes peace and charity should most appear And all these religion-disputes whether we consider the subject they are about or the manner they are handled or the distracting variety into which they run concerning faith revealed which can be but one I do not see what other effect they can hav upon mankind but to subvert all civill respect and charity and good manners and laws and kingdoms where they come For no man is content if he pretend to have discovered a new way of religion unless all other men embrace it and press and pulpit must ring with loud cries against all that do not be they neighbours or superiours untill the sword it self be sharpened in our hands for battle Thus beginning with the spirit we end with the flesh It is not my meaning to interpose in any particular controversy whose multitude hath already made the world to nauseate but to hold up my discours in such generall tearmes as I shall think may serve if we lay our hands upon our heart and ponder them with a Christian seriousnes so many of us as be now uncharitably bent against our neighbour somewhat to allay and mitigate the many flaming heats of discord raging here in England as much or rather more than any other countrey for opinions concerning faith which as they are taken up at first upon self-conceit interest as experience hath sufficiently shown so are they upon all rules of Christian vertue and prudence if we ever mean to be happy to be deposed Be not many maisters for where all would sway there none obay and so ruin and mischief must needs follow The difficultie is I know not how to express the parties in this religion-feud that I may not offend for so bitterly is each side bent against the other that they will not endure to have them called by their own names But I notwithstanding should deem it not only a civility but a due debt so to do for that is every ones name by which himself will be called and not what an enemy gives him The Protestant is such a one and so to be named though his foe on one side sirname him Papist and his adversary on the other call him heretick so the Catholick likewis by his junior foe is called Papist by his elder enemy a Galilean and altho he may if he will yet do not think him bound to answer either to that appellation or this and therfore if I behave my self civilly towards him I can use neither And as it is for nomination of persons so likewis for the verities of their opinions no party will endure that any one truth of the other side should be acknowledged and he that shall do it will be looked upon as a common enemy by the rest Insomuch danger is even ordinary neighbourhood and civility amongst us when these feuds are once raised I have known good Protestants endangered these times
glittering systems at as great a distance from us then as these be now and so forward without end If we imagin an edge or outward rim of the univers let us conceiv as it is not impossible that a man were set there and preserved in his being where should his head be out of the world and no where could he there think or speak or put forth his finger or cast a stone and all this in nothing and beyond the whole univers can an imaginary thing be as capable of reall action as naturall place Is God really there beyond all this univers or no if not then must he be limited to the extension of his works and his immensity as much confined as they if he be really there as he is here I cannot see but that it is as reall a place as this wherin the world stands namely if we take place not according to the definition of Aristotle ultimum continentis c. which description provides well for the placeing of a hous or tree not at all for the univers which according to that description is in no place at all but according to the true and genuin nature of place as it is the immovable basis of a body penetrating and penetrated by it for this is the true reason of primary absolute and essential place whereas Aristotle describes onely that which is secondary accidental and relative essential place is naturally before any body placed in it accidental described by Aristotle must needs be after some body being a relation of the containing to the contained body And lastly if the world be finite as mans understanding is more prone to think becaus of the incongruities in reason apprehended in a supposal of infinity not indeed to be grasped by mans intellect who can say where the incongruities be greater about an infinite something or an infinite nothing if the world be finite in its real being the imaginary or no being must be infinite where also it is as possible for Gods unlimited power to place worlds without end as he hath done this here Who dare say he cannot do it who can say he has not done it This then is absolutely uncertain unto us as we are left to our selves and not to be defined by man Nor do the reasons produced by philosophers against the worlds infinity inferre any greater absurdity then a finite world inferrs perhaps less and if those reasons be well pried into we shall finde that generally those philosophers endeavouring to show the absurdities of a real categorematical infinity which we cannot grasp do notwithstanding so argue against it as if they had grasped it which is a great and ordinary fallacy in all their arguments against infinity either of time or magnitude I intend not here to maintain any thing but onely this that our reason left to it self can certainly make out nothing Those innumerable shining lights we behold in the firmament there glittering and twinkling without ceas S. Austin doubted if they were not beatified bodies wherein glorified creaturs might have their residence in bliss and we may doubt it still for aught I know Were those huge bodies of glory in their several stations and magnitudes made onely for us to sleep by we can mean no other when we say so confidently that all the whole univers was made onely for our use For our use I doubt not some part in one kind som in another but to say or think only for our use the use we now make of it is in my mind but a weakish fansy The sun moon and other planets we know som use of but of the stars in the firmament little or none at all but onely for our wonderment What needed so many for our use why of that divers magnitude sith candles all of a bignes would have been both more handsom and convenient why in that uncouth scituation that the greatest wit can make no more of it than childrens imagination of phantastick shapes in the clouds why thousands so obscure that hardly discernable and likely thousand others seldom or never seen by us at all And what is the use we have of them do they make our sleeps sounder or our dreams more or less do not the beasts of the field especially those of prey make more use of them than man who is commonly going to bed after the sun when the wild beasts go forth to their prey by starlight and amongst men the better any one is the less use hath he of the stars for the drunkard theef and adulterer do their works generally by night The greatest use I know we have of those glorious bodies is to rais us up to a devout contemplation of that invisible and almighty Being from whence did issue so many visible glories of himself for to say those firmament stars serv for the effecting alteration of states and kingdoms translation of empires wars and peace civility and barbarism religion deluges and the like is a meer ungrounded conjectur sith all these things might be sufficiently promoted by the inferiour planets and concours of others causes for aught any one can tell without any star in the firmament at all and yet even those uses are but very small and inconsiderable for such vast bodies to be only ordained for if truly asserted One use is certain to rais us to the meditation of things invisible and to lead us up by degrees even as themselvs are seated one above another like so many greeces in the ethereal expans unto that hidden Being who is the caus of all And this is for us who have all our necessities otherwayes supplied use enough but he that therefor thinks they have no other use in themselvs becaus they serv us in this is but yet in his young thoughts and sees not beyond his own untutoured imagination For considering that those glorious bodies are even in our demonstrated and uncontrouled reason as exessively more specious and beautiful so also far greater than our whole globe of earth wherein we live even twenty sold some of them and upwards why should all those vast capacities be in vain Why may not we rather think intellectuall substances resident therein with bodies more and less refined in degrees and modes and fashions to us altogether unknown who might chant out the praises of the almighty One in measures answerable to their condition without end can this seem to any man unreasonable so the ancient wise men among the Pagans Democritus Pythagoras and several other great Philosphers conceived for the greater honour and glory of the first caus and shall they be more zealous of Gods glory than we or shall we Christians be the onely hidebound Philosophers in the world not able to conceiv any thing beyond the eye and imagination of a child The eminent french Philosopher De Cartes conceited the twinkling stars we see and innumerable others we discover not to be in their ranks and places as so many suns in the firmament about
which move Planets or bodies unto us here altogether invisible except we either rise higher or they descend towards us in their motion warmed and vegetated by their fires as we by our sun If it be thus as well it may for aught I can know of my self what a strange consort of hymnes and praises rise up in the univers continually and without ceas as incens in several keys of musick unto that great holy One who made us all to supply the defects of those small pittiful services we poor worms perform unto him in this our earthly system This may seem far more rationall thank to think that we gross corporeall creatures and sensuall sinners are the only people in the univers who serv the almighty and that all those eminent bright shining systems above us whose order method properties bulk and nature is so obscure are there set and appointed for nothing else but onely for our use which we cannot yet say what it is and when we have imagined our utmost is not of the value of any one star in the firmament or that bodies of their vast capacity should be utterly empty and have no creature at all within them I should of my self be so far from thinking that the stars of the firmament are onely for our use that I should doubt whether the very elements amongst which we live and breath earth aier and water and the beasts minerals and plants contained in them are onely made to serv us tho chiefly intended for our benefit The very gradual perfections of nature hath in it self a worth and decency beseeming the Creatour tho man had never been And if all had been onely aimed for our use would not a less sea have served our turn and fewer birds beasts fish and plants What use have we of all the great depth of earth under us to the center or larg vast aether about us And if we were such absolute lords of the world as we conceiv our selves to be how is it that nothing at all in natur is at our command not the sea not the aier not the earth it self nor any thing upon it or in it will either come or go or alter or stop his course at our pleasure which King Canutus observed well when standing with his nobles by the Thames side he perceived the tide to rush upon him altho he had commanded it to com no nearer What kind of vassails be these inferiour natures under man that will obey us in just nothing Besides when any one is absolute maister of a hous wholly destined to his use surely such a one can go and com into any room thereof without controul but let man walk down either into the bottom of his seas to see his fish there or into the cellars of his earth amongst the mettals and tell me if he be not stifled as soon as other creatures But if he once attempt to mount the upper rooms of his habitation tho it be but into the first or second region of the aier he shall fail at the very first step for his ethereal greeces will not bear the gross unweildly bulk of their Lord so ill is the house fitted for the maisters constitution from the very top to the bottom Can we not honour and bless God for the use he hath lent us of all these things which is great and various but we must by the vanity of our hearts appropriate and monopolise the univers to our selvs as if it were for no other use at all but ours The manifold use and services we have of the stars and elements beasts birds fish and plants which do all administer unto man in somthing or other according to the exigence either of his necessities thence to be supplied or his corporal delight or mental speculation to be furnished from that great body which the divine goodnes therefor made before man that in the first instant of his being he should want nothing ought to make us thankful but not proud And so the holy prophet admiring the excellency and perfection of place that mankind by his creators goodnes hath over other visible creatures amongst whom he livs and the various uses he hath of them doth in one of his sweet psalms invite man thereupon to magnifie this his great benefactour who set him in so high a place when he needed not to have put him in any and if man do so he shall do well But he must not appropriate more to himself than is given or instead of being thankful for the dominion he has received vainly conceit a dominion he has not Aristotle fansied our earth to be the center of the Univers and the stars to be a sift essence differing from all the four elements placed in the circumference but the great wits of the world that lived before him Pythagoras Empedocles Anaxagoras Democritus Epicure were of another mind And although our Christian Schoolmen have now for five of six hundred years explicated and defended the principles of their religion even in the way of Aristotle by which for a thousand years it had been opposed by the pagan yet do they not intend to mix his philosophy with those principles of their faith nor does the great Christian Church therefore canonise his philosophy for truth becaus she suffers her own truths to be declared and explicated by it If Christianity be true it fears no antagonists but will bear the test of any right philosophy but yet philosophy that it may be right indeed must be corrected and ordered by this divine truth as well as this explicated in som things by it And if another Christian philosopher should explicate his faith now afresh in the way of Democritus or Pythagoras as in the first times of the Church it was declared in the way of Plato and in these latter ages by Aristotle so he do it piously and warily and square not his rule of faith by them but them by it I cannot see why it may not commendably be done But then as he does use those explications to satisfy a pythagorean or epicurean so must he confidently reject as dissonant to right reason what he finds unapt to square with the received truths of Jesus Christ as we do now deal with Aristotle This if it were done as Christian religion will be justified when it is perceived to stand with the right reason of any Philosophy so likewise when another Philosophy contrary to Aristotles is once understood all the whole univers both for number weight and measure its essences relations concatenation origin life and qualities would hang as loose suspence and doubtful as if nothing had been ever said of it Aristotles reasons will make Democritus and his disciples doubted and again the great learning and subtility of Democritus Anaxagoras Epicurus Empedocles will as much disable Aristotle and the doubt may be as pregnant among Christians as other men where the catholick Church interposes not the autority of some received tradition to cast
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
things of catholick profession don by him and the people he converted But partly by the great succeeding persecutions raised by the Roman emperours against Christianity partly by the unwearied endeavours of the Pagan priests here in the land against it about the time of Marcus Aurelius the Roman emperour and year of our Lord 190. there were hardly any remnants of it left in this island Wherefore our noble Brittish King Lucius moved by the fame of that holy faith sent to Eleutherius then Pope in Rome to entreat he would destin into our countrey some of his special pastours to teach us his Christian faith The Pope sent him two good priests Fugatius and Damian who arriving here with some few others who were pleased to accompany them made both the King himself and his Queen and very many of his subjects Christian And this Christianity of the Brittons no man I think will doubt it to be catholick since the whole profession of it both while the Brittons lived in this land and after that they were expelled by the Pagan Saxes into the mountains of Wales doth clearly manifest it if Priests living together in monasteries some hundreds of them many times together and exercising in Churches their priestly functions upon the reall and mysticall body of Christ if praying before crucifixes erecting of crosses solemnizing of feasts keeping of Lent vigils and embers honouring of Saints making oblations and orisons for the dead may as it needs must signifie so much Nor can it be imagined that Pope Eleutherius sent to us by his Priests any other religion than his own And this is called Englands second conversion as that by Joseph of Arimathea the first and both of them equally to one and the same catholik faith and no other which however now by a strange judgment of heaven it be for a time traduced yet in primitive ages it was looked upon as a most sacred and blessed religion and then persecuted by none but such as were profest enemies to Christ himself as I could show at large but I must make haste After two or three hundred years this Religion all that while profest in the land was again banished by the utter overthrow and flight of the Brittons professors of it into our english Alps in Wales where Christian and Christianity lay hid together and the pagan Saxes who had driven them out equally hated both their faith and them Wherefor about the year of our Lord 596 the time of emperour Mauritius Pope Gregory the great of his own proper motion and good will towards us destined unto the conversion of the Saxes or Englishmen who being then pagans had possest themselvs of all the English territories S. Austin byshop and abbot who with forty other Priests his companions all good children of blessed S. Bennet preached here so powerfully that upon one Christmas day he baptised more then ten thousand souls for which good work of our conversion the Kingdom of England ever owned that good Pope for their spiritual patron and apostle And the children of S. Bennet are indeed our very fathers who first begat us in Christ and regenerated our English nation to the life of future bliss This Christian religion brought in by S. Austin the Brittons could not deny it to be conformable unto their own catholick faith received formerly from Pope Eleutherius in all matter of doctrin although they were so transported with passion against the Saxons their antient adversaries that they would neither let their own priests whereof they had more store then they had use of go forth to their conversion nor yet forbear to disturb good S. Austin in his so pious a work But such good Christians did our forefathers the Saxons after their conversion prove that they yielded nothing to the antient Brittons before them yea rather they exceeded them so that all the land was stored by them with goodly monasteries of S. Bennets order brave cathedral Churches fair colledges and libraries manuscript crosses shrines oratories sufficient and wholsom laws for all occasions hospitals corporations and all that might be necessary either to our temporal or spiritual welfar And all our people were wholly attentive to their devout contemplations of a life to com in Christ our great redeemer Church and State being now most piously and prudently provided for when William the Conquerour in the year of our Lord 1066 Constantine Duca being Emperour of the East came in upon us from France and conquered us This valiant captain finding our catholick religion conformable to his own Christianity although he abrogated much of our civil law and used in temporal affairs too too much of violence thereby to subjugate the land more perfectly to himself yet he medled not at all with any alteration in religion nor once excepted against it but lived himself with the rest of his subjects both saxes and normans and died contentedly therein building of his own devotion som fair monasteries to S. Bennet before his death wherein God might night and day be served and praised for his souls greater expiation from that tinctur of bloodshed it might have contracted in his wars and vehement proceedings with the saxon nobility after his victory And in this same catholick religion did both Norman and Saxon live peaceably together and without any the least disturbance upon that account though for civil respects York and Lancaster raised broils enough untill the end of King Henry the eighths reign about six hundred years together after the Conquerours ingress into the land the people offering daily their prayers and orisons before the altar and sacred crucifix together with their priests and prelats all Roman catholicks without any schisme or disturbance From whence we may note first that all the three conversions of our Kingdom wherein we lived unanimously so long together were all of them to one and the same catholick Roman faith secondly that this faith as it represents Christ its divine sours in purity which all men might see if they would have but patience to examine it so likewise both in unity and unchangeablenes as there is but one God and he immutable so is there but one faith and it unchangeable Thirdly that catholick religion is so far from being an enemy to the state-politick as som reformers to its greater disparagement would pretend that it is the great founder and maintainer of it Nor ever had this land for so many hundred years it was catholick upon the account of religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of that catholick beleef in our land from the period of K. Henries reign to these dayes we have ever been either in actual disquiet or at least in fears vulgar heads uncontroulable in their fansies since they were by the reformation constituted in effect both judges and contrivers of controversies ever raising som new fangled way or other to disturb or at least to threaten and indanger our peace And it is a thing of much wonder
Church as that our good works be all mortal sins and damnable before God that we have no will or power to do good or avoid evil that the commandements of God are impossible to be kept c. but rather all contrary as if we were ashmed of our own doctrin and afraid to speak before the people what we know in reason could not but offend Christian ears But all generally do preach when they preach any good thing the doctrin of catholicks though ever abused with their own modes and mixtures For every sect as it hath a peculiar spirit so hath it a mode and vein and method proper to it self The Independent speaks many good words but inconsequent and unconnexed so much roving up and down as if he had a mind to be prophet errant and before he gives over to say somthing of every thing The Presbyterian ever pursues some Platonick idea for example the ingoing and outgoings of Christ which is so thin and bodiles that he is forced to assign six or seven wayes to discern it then gives twelv consequent effects nineteen wayes to get c. in which wayes he does even tire himself as you may perceive by his melting and breathing when he comes to the high hills of eighteenthly and ninteenthly and after some months labour and travel in these his wayes at last with much ado he finishes his text which before he handled it was good and easy doctrin but is now by his tedious exercise rendered obscure intricate and full of doubts The Protestant cuts his text out logically into so many parts and then walks through them all with an even rhetorick adorned with witty conceits and flowers of common places still bringing un that parcel of the text he is handling with such proportion and measure in the close that a man must needs say when he has done that he has shewed a featous piece of art and when his or Presbyterian or Independents sermon is ended then is the great work of their religion done though all to little purpos for a dead mans foot say what you will to him will never warm is shoo But the Catholick if he speak like himself having gravely and pithily prest the intention of the gospel for such a day unto the peoples practis and devotion falls to the great works of sacrifice if it be in the morning and of evensong in the after noon adoration prayer and charity which is the summe wherein his religion consists and all his preaching servs but as a pair of bellows to make those coles burn Nor does any good old catholick that is well grounded in the constant practis of his faith care at all for any further instruction knowing aforehand that it can tend to nothing els than what before he knew and yet endeavours to practis For with him pure religion and undefiled is not to hear words but do deeds to reliev the orphan and widow and to keep our selvs unspotted in this world which unspottednes we attain by complying heart and hand unto the rule and sacraments of Jesus Christ Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear any sermon made to them upon a text all their whole life time but meerly flocked together at their priests appointment to their messach or dominicum or Leiturgy or by what other name for they used many at several times to avoid the pagans discovery their Christian sacrifice was called And it is most strang that we should pretend here in England to be Christians and the only good ones and yet reject those two great things which were by all Christendom esteemed in every age the very essences of Christianity the tribunal of absolution and the great Legacy of Jesus his body to his spous the Church insisting wholly upon preaching which as it is an accidental and relative work of our Christianity so is it common with us an all religions both Mahometan Jew and Pagan whose sermons if any should hear he could not tell by the morality of the master to what religion they belonged It is hard to say why against all the vogue of antiquity we should be so violent as to abolish the Christian sacrifice pull down the altars banish the priesthood yea and persecute it unto death except we mean to repaganise our selvs Our protestant forefathers when they first rose found manifestly all the Christian world over that this incruent sacrifice according to the order of Melchisedeck was and had ever been the sum of all apostolical devotion for which our many goodly fair Churches shrines and altars were built which hang now forlorn and desolate in our hands like great dead carkasses after the soul is departed for the inshrined body of Jesus was the life and soul of our Churches which then died all of them when he departed mouldring away ever since into dust and rottennes And therefor Martin Luther with his Kate the Adam and Eve of protetestancy did not for that reason presume to pull down the altars although they would not keep them up without the mixtur of som errour of their own But we in England in our strang heat tore down all without either president of the catholick world or our own reforming forefathers We cannot but see if indeed we see any thing that every law and religion hath been still annexed with a corresponding sacrfice Yea so surely and universally that sacrifice seems both to be born with religion and with religion to be extinguished The first men who worshipped God in the world as Cain and Abel are said to have don it with a sacrifice after the flood with religion again renewed was also sacrifice renewed by Noah and when afterwards through divers persecutions religion was brought into hazzard nothing did the prophets so much lament as the ceasing of their sacrifice as may be be seen in the book of Kings and Daniel And not without reason for all other kinds of good things offered or don to God are common also unto creatures only sacrifice is a worship so due to the Almighty as none either in heaven or earth may partake with him in it an other sacrifice properly socalled besides this according to the order of Melchisedeck there never was any amongst Christians For although faith hope and prais be by way of analogy called a sacrifice in an improper and translated locution to set forth the worth and acceptablenes of them yet this is so far from derogating to the great and solemn sacrifice properly so called that it presupposes and establishes it for the other could not have that analogical name except that thing were unto which they may bear analogy prais could not be commanded as sacrifice if there were no such thing as sacrifice thence the commendation should be drawn and to whose worth it should allude as it were impertinent and foolish to express the sweetnes of any oratory by the name of honey and sugred rhetorick if we did beleev there were no such
day But thanks be to Him that provided a wise and vigilant Pilot with whom he sits himself invisibly at the stern to guide him and such as voiage in the same ship with him unto all truth even to the consummation of the world Histories will tell us how careful and more then humanly happy Popes have been in all ages in reconciling Christian princes and resolving difficulties between them in examining of doctrines in counselling and perswading high spirited children ready to fly out into heresies to humility and resignation in governing so many bodies of Religious which be all subjected under him as other parts of the Church be and are so numerous that one would hardly beleev ther should be so many religious houses in the Christian world all serving God night and day with that silence order and cleanlines every one in his way and institute that it is the goodliest thing in the world to behold St. Bennet rose in the sixth age of the Church about the year 529. and yet about the year 1480. it is written that ther were then of his order fifteen thousand monasteries in the world and the other families of S. Francis S. Augustine S. Dominick the Society and others are none of them much less numerous and all these families have still recours to the Pope both for their rule and statutes and for all difficulties that may occurre in their spiritual government And who can be sufficient for all these things None surely but he that is singularly assisted from heaven and Christ our Lord in my judgment hath no less shown his divinity and power in the Pope than in himself as much in his spirituall and mystick as he did in his natural body and the life indeed which by his Spirit he livs in his Church is in a manner the very same with his naturall one now praying now disputing amongst the doctours now fasting then watching then healing the sick and working miracles then persecuted maligned envied somtimes at a feast somtimes hungrying somtimes making merry with a loaf of bread and few fishes the disciples now defending their maister now the maister defending his disciples c. for so the Pope protects innocent beleevers and these again defend him But of all those glorious things our Lord did in his life time conversion of people confutation of pharisaical opposers releeving of poor healing of diseases and the like he hath shown greater abundance in his Church than in himself according as himself promised Ye shall do greater things than these Which confutes the antient calumny of our old adversary the Jew who ascribed all our Lords miraculous operations either to som gipsie tricks he learnt when he was in Egypt or to som evill spirit he had got to attend his person either of which had it been true had failed with his peson and his power had not extended to his Church And all things considered I think I may truly say that Christ in the Pope and Church is more miraculous than he was in his own person and I doubt not but the nativity of his Church and miraculous conversation passion resurrection and ascension shall be the same with his So that he who contemns the Pope contemns Christ who presides in him and he that contemns the Church villifies his spirit which lives and movs and animates that body I could be very copious in this subject but I must not be prolix in any thing I only desire my reader to consider this one thing which after serious thought he will find to be true that if there had not been Popes in all ages both to conserv and propagate faith we had either never heard any news of Christianity here in England or not kept it undisturbedly so long All the whole gospel and body of Christianity is his purely his and from him we received it Nay the first great fundamental of Christian religion which is the Truth and divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world and what then had becom of all the rest For after Pope Sylvester according to the faith of his ancestors had by means of his three Legates great Osius bishop of Corduba White and Vincent two priests established in the first councel of Nice the said divinity of Christ our Lord wherein he is consubstantial to that almighty One who made the earth and stars against Arrius and his allies who began to teach the contrary it is incredible to say what frequent murmurations resorts and conciliar meetings were made afterward up and down the world by the priests and byshops who had drunk in the contrary opinion and in that point deserted him against their Pope and Pastour for three or four hundreed years together till in a manner all the whole Church not only clergy but laiety and the princes of Christendom opposed him in it while the Pope now left in a manner alone or with a very thin retinue of beleevers and all his successors one after another fought even to sweat and blood for the vindication of that great Christian article even against the whole world And he so far overcame at length that there be scarcely in these dayes any that doubt of that which the Pope only by the authority of his place and title wrought out of the very fire Whence I may truly say that Christ is the Popes God for if the Pope had not been or had not been so vigilant and resolute a pastour as he is humanly speaking Christ had not been taken for any such person as he is beleeved this day And let men talk what they will by their vain philosophy this I will boldly say and am assured of that if the Pope be not an unerring guide in matters of religion and faith all is lost A man once rid of the controul of his autority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the incarnation as the sprinkling of holy water nor could the reason of the whole earth be able to convince him And after all this shall children and boyes jeer and revile in our streets and pulpits this sacred majesty of the Pope whom the vertue wit valour and nobility of all Christendome hath ever so highly honoured and we if we consider things as we ought can never love too much shall we cast unjust and vile contumelies upon him who holding a solicitude for all the Churches of Christs has so many millions of the greatest spirits in the world depending upon his lips for direction and truth with whom and under whom have concurred in his general councels so many thousands of renowned prelates venerable byshops princely cardinals grave patriarchs subtile divines and doctours Abbots and Generals of orders oratours chancellors knights and barons sent to his assistance by the Kings and Potentates of Christendom the very stars of our earthly hemisphere met together either to make up or grace and strengthen his great counsell convened in subordination to his legates nay emperours
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
that a nation such as England is so wise and serious in all other things so judicious and grave should be perswaded by any mans words against the dictamen of their own reason if they would but consult it to beleev any such thing of this innocent faith when they cannot but clearly see in all histories both our own and others that amongst all the pretended wayes of Christianity only catholick religion both sets up and preservs the Crown which giddy headed sects indanger Som of our english clergy tell us of a thousand I know not what dangers of the Pope thereby to get the assistance of secular power to their own ends but what is indeed the occasion they know assuredly that the Pope if he were once admitted would both separate them from the secular life they lead and bring into order their exorbitant opinions And what harm if both these things were done If we do but search antiquities we shall find that none of our ecclesiastiastical benefices were given by princes and people to maintain a wife and children but only such single abstracted contemplative men as had consecrated themselvs and all their whole affections to God to serv him in all singlenes of heart in prayer and fasting and perfect charity and in the sacrifice of the altar all the dayes of their life without any solicitude after this world as priests of antient Christianity did and not for women and children unto whose generation against ecclesiastical custom and constitutions our ministers give as much attendance as any secular man whatsoever and generate children which after their death unles they show in their life time more of wordly solicitude than their spiritual state permits must lie upon the parish and as for ordering our dissentions in points of faith I should think not only the Pope who would assuredly do it but any whatsoever thing in the world though it were but an owl in an ivy bush should deserv thanks if he effected it But I return to my story §. 18. Item NOt only the kingdoms of the continent Germany Hungary Italy France Spain but all the Northern coasts and islands Denmark Norway England Ireland and the isles about them were now in a full and quiet possession and profession of their catholick religion when upon a little occasion heaven so willing it for some great sin or neglect of mankind the whole scene was changed on the sodain and catholick faith in our northern coasts to the grief and amazement of all that were then alive utterly abolished even by the discontent of one person and he but a private one neither upon this occasion The Pastour of Christianity upon some solicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance throughout all Christendom to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary indulgence throughout the world in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus byshop of Mentz delegated by the Pope to see it executed in Germany committed the preaching and promulgation of it unto the Dominican friars which the hermits of St. Austin within the same place took ill but especially Martin Luther a preacher and professour in that order esteeming himself the best deserving man in the town grew exceeding wroth that any should be chosen before himself to execute that work which was likely to have as great an auditory and confluence of people as might happen in a mans life time to the no small repute of him who should be thought worthy before another to divulge the bull and make the exhortation sermon in the behalf as it were of the whole Christian world Vexed therfore that he was thus neglected and as he thought undervaliewed not only by words but books and papers secretly thrown about he diminished first the dominicans then the byshop then indulgences themselvs Catholick superiours and princes blamed this misdemeanour of Luther as a practis of much danger and sedition but he grew not any thing better thereby but rather more head-strong and furious as unlawful passion increases by the very means of mitigation inveighing now with more boldness as far as he durst both against Prince and Prelate too Insomuch that the duke of Saxony after a year or two invited friar Luther to his court where by dispute and colloquy with the eminent doctour Eckius if he could not make his caus good he might grow better principled at least for Gods sake and his own good condescend to moderation and peace But Luther after much tiresom talk told at last very boldly both the duke and his doctour too that the quarrel was not begun for God nor for God should it be ended And so departing thence he proceeded now with more virulent words to incens the people unto whom he promised liberty from their vowes and fastings and other penitential observances whereby he perverted much of the laity clergy and religious people both men and women who 't is strange to consider it violating their vowes deserted that Catholick Church besides which they had never known nor heard of other to follow the serpentine enticements of one private person and he if not the worst yet at least none of the best that ever were Thus when one ram has leapt over a hedg all the other poor sheep so many as be within ken of the fact are apt to follow So prone is man to go astray like sheep and do amiss to our own ruin without any other reason for it than the sight of a president acting before us what our own naturall inclination is apt of it self without the curb of religion or law of its own natur to embrace And so much was the world disposed at that ill hour to a dissolute loosnes that Luther was still gaining upon people even from his first apostacy But when he had once married himself unto Catherine Bore a Nun by him seduced out of the monastery of Mymick contrary to both theâ—r vowes so that he was now become a sure and fast enemy as well to continence as before he had shown himself to abstinence 't is wonder how fast they flocked to him on all sides not only from the vulgar laiety but even from all instutes and profession and countries even the priests and votaries of chastity Oecolampadius a monk of S. Briger Jacobus Praepositi an Augustine Andreas Carolstadius an archdeacon in Wittenberg Suinglius a cannon of Constance Martin Bucer a dominican fryar Lismanin a Franciscan Richerius a Carmelite John Calvin a curate priest Philip Melanchton out of Germany Michael Servetus out of Spain Bernardin Ochyn and Peter Martyr out of Florence John Alasco out of Poland Sebastian Castalio out of France Beza out of Burgundy Stancar and Valentine Gentile out of Italy Blandrate Alciate and David Georg out of Transylvania c. who being all hitherto catholicks took occasion now by the example of Luther to fall away whereby as the body of holy Church was purged of some unquiet spirits so was Luthers retinue in a short space