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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50252	A defence of the Protestant Christian religion against popery: in answer to A discourse of a Roman Catholick Wherein the manifold apostaties, heresies, and schisms of the chruch of Rome, as also, the weakness of her pretensions from the scriptures and the fathers, are briefly laid open: by an English Protestant.	Mather, Samuel, 1626-1671.	1672 (1672)	Wing M1278; ESTC R217670	45,074	64

Witnesses to this truth It was also in my thoughts to have noted something out of your own Writers concerning the Popish Circle I mean the maze of unbelief wherein they run round to prove the Scripture by the Church and the Church back again by the Scripture Like men drunk and giddy with the cup of the Wine of Astonishment and with the spirit of Delusion it being just with God to smite them with a vertiginous distemper of mind that they shall never come to any consistence to any settlement in the Faith who will not settle upon the true foundation and acquiesce in the Scriptures of Truth For as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeth the chaffe so their root shall be as rottenness and their blossome shall go up as dust because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the holy One of Israel Isa 5.24 And finally seeing you call so much for Humane Testimonies I had thought to have offered some which I think you will blush to read out of your own Writers concerning the Veneration you give to your Popes your Representative Christs and Vice-gods and yet withall concerning the hideous prophaneness of their Lives and their Errability yea their actual erring Errors damnably and fundamentally destructive of the Faith and all this out of your own approved Authors out of whom I have observed and collected a few things but these few are too many to be here inserted The Subject is so copious that it requires an intire Tractate by it self therefore must be deferred till some other occasion do present And in the mean time so long as Gregories praecursor Antichristi and so long as Bellarmines Tulissimum est remains upon Record among men you may shut your mouths and cease your boastings of Humane Testimonies I Have now according to the measure of Light and Grace received returned you an Answer to your Paper somewhat largely I confess being desired to answer it to the full but yet as briefly as I could yea omitting many things which might have been both truly and pertinently spoken I find that it hath been answered twice before by more Learned pens which as it renders this Labour of mine less necessary and which I think might have been spared had you not called with such renewed importunities for an Answer so it renders you the more without excuse for that now you have the Truth against one opposition confirmed to you in the mouth of Three Witnesses First by Mr. Baxter in his Key for Catholicks printed Anno 1659 who received a great part of this your paper in a Manuscript sent from Wolverhampton to Sturbridge and hath inserted it and confuted it in his Book before mentioned page 244. It hath been answered a second time by Dr. Owen in his Animadversions on Fiat Lux Cap. 2. page 59 c. and in his Vindication of his Animadversions Cap. 4. page 48. deinceps And yet now after two Answers in print you send the same words again such is the penury of your cause in a Manuscript to a person of Honour in this Kingdom of Ireland with a challenge to our Divines to answer it which hath produced and drawn forth this third Answer to it besides all that hath been written in former times as also of late by Dr. Stillingfleete Mr. Poole and others though not to this individual paper but upon occasion of other oppositions yet in defence of the same general Truth and Cause of Christ against Popery O that He who alone is able would vouchsafe to bless both those former and these present endeavours so as to undeceive and open your eyes and convince you by his Spirit of the Vanity of Vanities that is in these pretensions of Supremacy Inerrability and Indefectibility in your Church and Pope The Lord awaken you out of these golden Dreams before it be too late Yea I do believe through grace and am persuaded That he will yet do it by one means or other for such of you as do belong to the election of his grace The same free and sovereign grace that did pity that did undeceive and convince and conquer Paul when in his full career of blind Zeal and opposition is able to convince and over-power you Father forgive them for they know not what they do Now the Lord in mercy do it That your Faith may not stand hereafter in the wisdom of men but in the power of God CHAP. VIII An APPENDIX for the further Illustration of some things which are but briefly hinted in the former Chapters IN Cap. 2. of Apostasie and again in Cap. 3. of Heresie mention is made of counsel given by Papists to the Pope A Friend to whom the Answer was communicated in Manuscript made some Inquiry about it to whom a further Account was sent which because the same Inquiries are not unlikely to arise in the studious Readers mind is thought fit to be communicated I find there were two papers of Advice presented to the Pope in those dayes about the time of the Council of Trent for the help and support of the then declining Church of Rome both which give pregnant evidence against her of her corruption and departure from Apostolical and primitive purity The first to Pope Paul the Third in the Year 1538. by Nine select Cardinals and Prelates viz. Cardinal Contarenus Cardinal Peter Theatinus afterwards Pope Paul the Fourth Cardinal Sadolet Cardinal Reginald Poole of England c. The Title is Consilium Delectorum Cardinalium Praelatorum de emendanda Ecclesia This Novem-virale Concilium was sent by Nicholaus Cardinalis Capulanus to a Prince in Germany by whom it came to the hands of Luther and Sturmius and by their means was made publick It is mentioned and quoted by Espensaeus a Popish Bishop a Sorbenist in his Commentaries on Titus 1. It was extant in the Book of the Councils Tom 3. Concil Edit per Crab. Edit Colon 1551. But in all other Editions Pontificiorum furto fraude desideratur saith Mr. Crashaw who Reprinted it London 1609. These men do with something of Ingenuity acknowledge and advise to a Reformation of sundry enormous Abuses and Corruptions in the Church of Rome and they begin wisely and faithfully at the fountain Well-head telling the Pope plainly Principium horum malorum inde suisse quod nonnuili Pontifices tui Praedecessores prurientes auribus ut inquit Apostolus Paulus coacervarunt sibi magistros ad desideria sua non ut ab eis discerent quod facerè deberent Page 2. sed ut eorum studio calliditate inveniretur ratio quâ liceret id quod liberet Ex hoc fonte sancte pater tanquam ex equo Trojano irrupêre in Ecclesiam Dei tot abusus tam gravissimi morbi quibus nune conspicim is eam ad desperationem sere salutis laborasse The beginning of these Eviis say they hath been that some of the Popes your

First Whose company did she leave Secondly From what body did she go forth Where was the true Church which she forsook And the same thing is repeated again a second and a third time in your Paper ANSWER You do here again as before in your description of Apostasie and Heresie describe the thing amiss that you may the better ward off the blow and de●●●● your Church Not that we desire to strive with you about words but as they do involve erroneous and undue apprehensions of things Be it granted That Schism is a rent or a breach of that Unity that Christ hath appointed in his Church and so as Heresie denies the Faith Schism destroyes 〈…〉 of the Gospel but your description of it fails in 〈◊〉 I. There may be Schism in a Church within it self The Apostle several times useth this word in this Epistle to the Corinthians as 1 Cor. 1.10 and cap. 11.18 and cap. 12.25 I hear saith he that when you come together in the Church there be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divisions or schisms among you Though that any of them did break off from the communion of the Church doth not appear but there were carnal contendings and strivings within and among themselves rending and tearing one another which the Apostle there calls Rents or Schisms II. There may be Schism from another Church contemporary and coexistent as well as from a Church praeexistent There is no necessity that it must be only from a former Elder Church yea an Elder Church may be guilty of Schism from a younger and from those that were her own Members if she break the bond of love and order with them by her own corruptions and persecutions It is the apostatizing persecuting Church that makes the rent and is guilty of the Schism and not the Reforming party who are driven out by them Now to apply these things a little to the Church of Rome she may be charged with Schism upon all these Accounts The plain truth is she is the most Schismatical Church in the World both within her self and in reference to other Churches also a the evidence whereof is so notorious that if I were a Roman Catholick I would tell you That it was very unhappily and unadvisedly done of you to mention this business of Schism in a Paper of Dispute offered by you to the Hereticks For first within her self Her intestine Schisms and Divisions have been so many that it would make this Paper swell into a Volume Bell Praef. in Libr. de Pontif to number them all up unto you It is Bellarmines own concession though he labours also to cover this nakedness with a Fig leaf That there were Schismata gravissima plurima ipsorum interase Romanorum Pontificum Very grievous and very many Schisms Voet. Disp Vol. 2. Dis 43. p. even of the Popes of Rome amongst themselves Voetius refers you to Mayer's Book of the Six and twenty Schisms of the Church and See of Rome 689. Onuphr Roman Pontif. Cardinal ad Annum Christi 1378. but your own Onuphrius reckons up no less than Twenty nine Schisms in the Church of Rome And of the Twenty eighth in the time of Clement the seventh he saith it was Pessimum diuturnum Schisma omnisque Res-publica Christiana divisa A most wicked and long lasting Schism for it lasted as he saith no less than One and fifty years together and the whole Christian world was divided by it the French Spaniards and others following Clement the seventh but Germany Hungary England and part of Italy followed Urban the sixth Moreover Anno Christi circiter 897. c. to mention another instance among so many the Schisms were so violent between Pope Stephanus and Pope Formosus and their Successors That they did nothing but do and undo Ratifie and Rescind the Acts and Decrees of one another Stephanus for his part he Rescinds the Decrees of Formosus and like a quiet and peaceable man digs him up out of his Grave cuts off his Fingers c. But Pope Romanus and Theodorus and John the Tenth disannulled the Acts of Stephen and approved Formosus Yet after these comes Sergius the third who digs up Formosus his dead body once more cuts off his Head casts it into Tyber Rescinds his Decrees Now the Question is Which of them shall we believe for Bell. de Pontif. lib 4. cap. 12. they were all infallible Bellarmine determines That Stephanus and Sergius were in the Error and so like an Heretick he takes upon him to judge the Pope And as you have Popes and Antipopes so you have Councils against Councils for instance V. Calvis Chr●nol ad annum 1437. your Councils of Constanoe and Basil have defined That the Council is above the Pope Quod nisi est quis unquam Romano Pontifici quamvis improbissimo contradicerei Which if it be not so Who would ever gainsay the Pope though never so wicked say they of Basil in their Bull Jan. 17. 1438. But Pope Leo and the Council of Lateran have determined the contrary And here again Bell. de Conciliorum authoritate lib. 2. cap. 19. de Eceles militante lib. 3. cap. 16. Bellarmine takes upon him to determine between the dissenting Popes and Councils and plonounceth that of Basil as soon as Antichrist was angry with them to be but Conciliabulum c. But in the mean time your boastings of a Supreme Infallible Visible Judge amongst you to end your Controversies are to much purpose unless Bellarmine be he but he is dead and who succeeds him in the Office I cannot tell And I wonder What became of your uninterrupted Succession all this while during all these Broyles and Schisms And where is your P●●c● and Unity among your selves When Bellarmine almost upon every Controversie reports the contrary Opinions of your own Doctors some of which he condemns very severely Voet. Disp part 2 inventar Eccles Roman p. 689. I have not told them how many they be but Voetius saith He mentions no less than Two hundred contrary Opinions amongst your own Writers which your Infallible Judge as it seemeth hath not determined to this day I might here mention as signal Instances thereof The sharp Contests and Digladiations between your Dominicans and Franciscans and Jesuites about the power and interests of Free-will and Free-grace and the influence thereof into mans Conversion and Predestination and about the immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary about which your Trent Council durst not give a clear definitive sentence but speaks ambiguously like the Delphick Oracles of old As also the Contests between your French Sorbonists and your Hildebrandine Parasites of the Court of Rome about the pragmatick Sanction of the Council of Basil the Liberties of the Gallican Church the power of Popes in reference to Councils and Magistrates c. Nor indeed do I know any one point wherein you differ from the Protestants wherein you are agreed amongst