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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26962	Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1677 (1677)	Wing B1315; ESTC R13884	120,987	206

words of Reynerius saying that the outer Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Church of Rome 8. The executive part neither could nor ever was performed upon the Churches without the Empire When did any Patriarch or any Provincial or General Council send for any Bishop or other person out of India Scythia Ethiopia or any other exterior Nation to answer any Accusation or pass any Sentence of Deposition or Suspension against them or put any other into their places 9. General Councils are confessed by Papists to be but a Humane and not a Divine Institution and what Humane Power could settle them in and over the Church Universal If you say It is by Universal Consent prove to us that ever there was such a Consent or that ever there was any meeting or treaty for such Consent of all the Christian World and we will yield it to you Surely if there be any Christians at the Antipodes they were not sent to in those days when Lactantius Augustine and others denyed that there were any Antipodes and derided it nor when the Pope by our Countryman Boniface his Instigation excommunicated Virgilius for holding that there were Antipodes Hear their great disputer Pighius Hierarch Eccles lib. 6. c. 1. fol. 230. General Councils saith he have not a Divine or Supernatural Original but meerly an Humane Original and are the Invention of Constantine a Prince profitable indeed sometimes to find out in Controversie which is the Orthodox and Catholick Truth though to this they are not necessary seeing it is a readier way to advise with the Apostolick Seat So that General Councils are Novel Humane and only of the Empire then 10. But to end all the Controversie the names of the Subscribers are yet to be seen who were not the representatives of the Christian World but of the Empire as is notorious Aeneas Sylvius Epist 288. saith that before the Council of Nice there was little respect had to the Church of Rome And though when he was made Pope Interest caused him to revoke his judgment of the Councils being above the Pope he never revoked such historical narratives Their great Learned Mathematical yet militant Cardinal Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. c. saith that the Papacie is but of Positive right and that Priests are jure Divino equal and that it is subjectional Consent which giveth the Pope and Bishops their Majority and that the distinction of Dioceses and that a Bishop be over Presbyters are of Positive Right and that Christ gave no more to Peter than the rest and that if the congregate Church should chuse the Bishop of Trent for their President and Head he should be more properly Peter 's Successor than the Bishop of Rome Object Oh but this Book is disallowed by the Pope Answ No wonder So is all that is against him The Exceptions which we grant are these 1. There were some Cities of the Empire that were near to other Nations where the Princes being Heathens Christians were underlings and few And the Bishops of these Cities extended their care to as many of the Neighbour Countries as would voluntarily submit to them So the Bishop of Tomys was Bishop of many Scythians and so some that were on the Borders of Persia had many Persians and were at Nice 2. There were some Countries that were sometimes under the Roman Power and sometime under the Persian or others as Victory carried it and these when they had been once of the Imperial Church took it when they fell under Heathens to be their Honour Strength and Priviledge to be so accounted still and so would come to their Councils after if they could So it was with the Armenians and the Africans when the 〈◊〉 had conquered them c. 3. There were some Bishops that lived on the Borders of the Empire under Heathens that needed the help of Neighbour Churches and accordingly were oft with them craving their help So it was with the old Britans as to the Bishops of France 4. There were some small Countries adjoining to the Empire who took the Friendship of the Roman Power for their great Honour and safety and therefore were glad to conform in Religion to the Empire and to let their Bishops join with them 5. And there were some Neighbour Countries who were turned to Christianity by the Emissaries of the Bishop of Rome who therefore rejoicing also in so powerful a Patronage were willingly his Subjects But this was long after the first great Councils These two last were the Saxons case in England Accordingly you may sometimes find two or three out of such Countries at some of the General Councils of the Empire Which yet were called General but as to the Empire and not as to the World To proceed in the History When Christians were mostly exempted from the Magistrates Judicatures that were most Heathens though under a Christian Prince and so the Bishops Canons were to them as the Laws of the Land are to us it is no wonder that Councils must then be very frequent and Canons of great esteem and hereupon Bishops by prosperity growing more and more worldly and carnal made use of their Synodical Power as is aforesaid to accomplish their own Wills So that the Synods of Bishops became the great Incendiaries and Troublers of the Empire You need no more to satisfie you of this but to read the Acts of the Councils and the words of Nazianzen called Theologus against Synods and contentious Bishops and the sad Exclamations of Hillary Pictav They that had too little zeal against Ungodliness Unrighteousness Pride and Malice were so zealous against any that withdrew from their Power and contradicted them that they easily stigmatized them for Hereticks and made even godly sober Christians suspected of Heresie for their sakes while notorious Vice was used gently in those that adhered unto them Even holy Augustine saith Drunkenness is a mortal sin si sit assidua if it be daily or constant what not else and that they must not be roughly and sharply dealt with but gently and by fair words Vid. Aquin. 22. q. 150. a. 1. 4. ad 4. a. 2. 1. And their Great Gregory That with leave they must be lest to their own wit or disposition lest they grow worse if they be pulled away from such a Custom as Drunkenness But when it came to such as withdrew from under them they were not so gentle Lucifer Calaritanus is made the Head of a Heresie because he was but too much against the receiving of such as had been Arrians The large Catalogues of Heresies contain many that never erred in Fundamentals They prosecuted the Priscillianists so hotly that if godly men were but given to fasting and strictness of life they were brought into suspicion of Priscillianism And the Vulgar took advantage of the Bishops turbulency and ill disposition to abuse the godly S. Martin therefore separated from the whole Synod of the Bishops about him and

Office and Dignity would he never have told the Church of Rome of their Mistris-ship and Infallibility above the rest Would so necessary a Fundamental of Faith have been so much silenced 3. Did the Apostles Evangelists or ancient Fathers use to Convert Infidels by any such Method and telling them that they must believe first the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergie and then believe the Gospel because he saith it is true Had this been the old Method would there not have been more Books necessary and written to prove this first Fundamental the Infallibility of the Roman Bishop and his Councils than to have proved the Gospel it self directly Is it not a wonder that we should have such Volumes as Eusebius his Praeparatio Demonstratio Evangel and so many written by those before and after him to prove the Gospel and none of them hit on this Method nor write at large to make it good The Churches Authority and Unity is ordinarily pleaded against Heresies and Schismes but who ever Converted Infidels by the Authority of the Papal Church either proved or asserted as the necessary Medium of Faith 4. Do you not confess that all other Churches may erre besides the Roman And their plea of Tradition you account invalid Your Book called Considerations on the Council of Trent by R. H. p. 40. saith All Conciliary Definitions are not only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches Planted by them but are many times Determinations of Points deduced from and necessary consequents to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2. If the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted to them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition Do you not at this day accuse the Greek Church the Muscovites the Armenians the Jacobites Syrians Copties Abassines the Protestants c. as having departed from or corrupted the first Tradition And how small a part of the Universality of Christians are the Papists And if the greater part of Christians may so forsake the Apostolical Tradition why may not the Pope of Rome and his Council How shall we be sure of their exemption from such danger You tell us over and over of our receiving this and that from our Fathers and Grand-Fathers And is that a certain Proof that it is Apostolical Why is it not so then with all the rest the Abassines the Armenians c. and the Majority of Christians But of this I have spoken in the former Treatise 5. And there I have desired you to tell us whether your Grandfather or his Priest was Infallible If yea how came he by it more than all those Churches If not do you not delude your Relations by drawing them to build their Faith on a fallible man or upon nothing Your Relations were not at the Council of Trent or Florence or Laterane How shall they be sure what the Pope and Council agreed on What Foundation but the words of your Priest or Grandfather have you for your assurance May not one of your Priests lye as well as all the Greek Abassine c. Churches When Pope Coelestine himself falsly urged the Nicene Council for Appeals to Rome contrary to Augustine and the Carthage Council Either tell your Readers plainly that it 's you and such as you that are the Infallible Foundation of their Faith or bid them stay and not go your way till they are certain what the Pope and his Council say and that he is a true Pope and it a true Council and that they are more Infallible than the major part of Christians And our Faith can be no stronger than the weakest necessary medium of it from whence it must arise 6. I have said so much of this in a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery which I intreat you impartially to peruse where I have also shewed the utter uncertainty that Popery would reduce our Christianity to that I will now only tell you that after your talk of Tradition and Church and Fathers and Grandfathers if we had not much more testimony of Tradition for our Religion than you have for Popery we should think our Faith were very lame Compare ours with yours 1. Yours is A pretended Authoritative determination which rests upon a supposed Inspiration of some Persons by virtue of a special Priviledge peculiar to themselves 2. It is the Tradition of the minor part of Christians against the major 3. It rests on the pretended Infallibility of a Pope which great General Councils have said may be a Heretick and have deposed divers as Hereticks and worse And upon the Infallibility of General Councils which by Popes and other Councils are pronounced fallible unless confirmed by a Pope who may be a Heretick 4. It rests upon a Foundation viz. the Popes Divine Right of Primacy and Infallibility which is expresly denyed by two of the first four great General Councils approved to this day viz. that of Calcedon reciting the sense of that of Constantinople against the said Divine right affirming that the Popes Primacy was given him by the Fathers because Rome was the Imperial Seat 5. It rests upon an Authority of Popes and General Councils which being at first but the Clergie of one Empire hath thence claimed the same Power over all the Christian World which they had got in the Dominions of one Prince 6. It rests on a Claim downright contradictory to it self as aforesaid viz. That we must believe that the Pope hath this Power and Infallibility given him and his Councils by Christ and his Gospel before we can believe that there is a Christ and a Gospel authorized and true Now our Tradition is this For all the Essentials of our Religion the Sacramental Covenant and the three expository Symbols we have the currant Tradition both of the Papists and all the rest of the Christian World Yea that every Book that we call Canonical is the true Word of God not only the Papists but almost all the Christian World confess And defacto that these Books came down from the Apostles at least that the Gospel was preached by them we have the Testimony also of Enemies and Persecutors And are not all these more than the Testimony of one Sect alone 2. And in this we have as much to confirm us as you have of the wisdom piety care of the Church to preserve the Gospel and much more too for we have the Piety of all the Churches to plead and not your Sect alone And we undertake to prove such a moral Infallibility as is also Natural viz. That Mans Nature and Interests supposed it is no more possible for so many Persons and Nations of cross Interests to have agreed in their Testimony for the Gospel than for all the

contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of

to his Salvation he having nothing to do but to believe that Jesus Christ hath done all for him Answ I had hoped there had been few such left in England Even Crisp and Saltmarsh were scarce so erroneous And were you such a one O miserable Man that was such a Puritan Who did bewitch you so grosly to contradict the whole Tenour of the Gospel It is just with God to leave you to set now as light by the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ as procuring you Pardon Grace and Glory as you did then set by Christian Virtues Piety and Love But what if it was so with you will that allow you to belie so many others How many score Volumes have the Puritans written which assert not only the possibility but the absolute necessity of Piety Charity Humility c. without which none can see God Infants Case is not here medled with I know not one Person in all the Land or World that will not abhor as false what you here charge in common on the Puritans unless he be a very gross Antinomian or some grosser Heretick here unknown Protestants Puritans Separatists Anabaptists yea Quakers all abhor it And yet you feared not to put this in Print Perhaps you will pretend for it the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone But they that say that Faith alone going first with Repentance doth justifie them by procuring the pardon of their sins and their Union with Christ do say that at the same moment of time it also sanctifieth them by procuring from Christ the Spirit of Sanctification giving them Love Humility Piety c. And that this is of absolute necessity to their Salvation Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 1. 6. 7. 13. So much of your false self-condemning description of a Puritan CHAP. III. II. YOU next Characterize the Prelatical Protestant Having said before p. 5. Their Preachers in their Sermons have little Life or Zeal and seldom discourse of such Truths as are apt to awaken Mens Consciences and make them lay to heart the great concern of the Salvation of their Souls Or if they do at any time preach of Judgment or of Hell Repentance or a New Life they do it very coldly and imperfectly and seem to talk like Parrots of what they have learnt by rote or out of others Books and not what they have had any experience of in their hearts And p. 6. Generally speaking I wish it were a slander Prelatick Protestants are very Prophane and give no signs of any interiour trouble of Conscience And if any of them begin to be heartily troubled for his sin he is observed either to turn Fanatick or Papist Answ If by a Prelatick Protestant you should unhandsomly mean only such as are worldly Clergy-men like too many of your Roman Prelates and their Curates who take Gain for Godliness and who allow their Flesh their Pride their Covetousness and Voluptuousness and Sloth to chuse their Religion whose God is their Belly who glory in their shame and who mind Earthly things and are Enemies to Cross-bearing and through Enmity to those that are better than themselves are Cross-imposers and Persecutors and Silencers of sober faithful Ministers because they cross their Pride and worldly Interest such it 's like may be no better Men than you describe them But why should you take the Word in so narrow a sense But if by Prelatick Protestants you mean all such Protestants whose judgment is for Episcopacy 1. You deceive and I suppose are deceived in your distinguishing these from Non-conformists It 's true that there are envious false-hearted Prelatists in the World that make false names for their Brethren to procure the belief of their false reports of them And God will cut out the lying Tongue But I will tell you the truth whose malice soever is against it there are Episcopal as well as Presbyterian and Independent Non-conformists now Yea divers that are against the late Wars of the Parliament and against the Covenant and never took it and some that have been Souldiers for the King and suffered for him Yea so considerable is the number of them that are Episcopal that in 1660. when the King called them to treat in order to agreement they offered him no other Form of Church Government than A. Bishop Usher's Reduction in which not a Pin of Honour nor one Farthing of their Revenue was desired to be taken from Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons but only the Parish Ministers enabled under them to have done somewhat more that belongeth to their Office instead of Lay-Chancellors c. Most Non-conformists of my acquaintance would be glad of the terms contained in the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs where Bishops and Archbishops are left as rich and high as they were before So far are Non-conformists Episcopal Protestants 2. And though Conformity be very much changed from what it was heretofore Episcopacy is not And I must tell you that I do not think that the Christian World hath more godly learned worthy Ministers than many of the Episcopal were heretofore Do you know what men Bishop Jewel A. Bishop Grindall and many more of old were And A. Bishop Usher Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant and many more of late Who hath written more earnestly and hotly for Episcopacy than Bishop Downame who wrote the great Latine Book to prove the Pope Antichrist yet who that knew him did ever question his piety or diligence And if you look to the old Conformable Presbyters read their Books and enquire of the Lives of many of them and then confess that they were better men and better Preachers than you describe Peruse the Writings of Mr. Rob. Bolton William Whateley William Fenner Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Gouge Mr. Thomas Gataker Mr. Crook and abundance of such others and enquire how they laboured and lived and you may hear that they were neither such Parrots nor prophane ones as you mention There may be some proportionable alteration supposed to be now made in the persons of the Conformists answerable to that which is made in Conformity it self But surely if you know London and many Miles near it and many Parishes in the several Counties you must confess that now there are many Learned Pious Conformists who Preach zealously and live religiously and hate Covetousness and Persecution and long to see the promoting of Piety Peace and Concord But if you expect a better Vindication of them I must desire you to consider of two things 1. That in most Countries and Ages the worldliest men that is the worst have been the greediest strivers and seekers for Church-Power and Perferments and he that seeketh most diligently is the likeliest to find And that ordinarily the Vulgar do dance after the Pipe of him that is uppermost and will be of the Religion of them that can help or hurt them be it what it will be Most will be of the Religion which is owned by Law or countenanced by

imposed Form only fit and a third think as the meer Puritan that both having their Conveniences and Inconveniences there should be seasons for both And I pray you here tell me two things if you can 1. Whether the great difference of Liturgies which are the very Words and Order of the Churches Worship be not liker a difference of Religions than the colour of our cloaths or the meat we eat or the lighting of a Candle c. And yet do I need to tell you how many Liturgies are recorded in the Bibliotheca Patrum Yea that it was six hundred years and more before the Churches in one Empire used all one and the same Liturgy and for some hundred years that every Church used what the Bishop pleased Yea that the first restraint of free-praying that we find was by a Council ordaining that the Presbyter should first shew his Prayer to the Fathers that they might be sure it was sound And had Basil and Chrysostome and all others that varyed as divers Religions as Liturgies 2. Whether all the doctrinal Controversies among your selves as between all your School Doctors about Predestination Grace and free will about Perseverance about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary about the Power of the Pope over all Kings in Temporals and about the killing of excommunicate Kings and the absolving their Subjects and whether after excommunication they are Kings or no of which Hen. Fowlis hath cited great store on one side and all the Moral Controversies about loving God about Perjuries Vows Murder Fornication Lying Stealing Drunkenness Gluttony of which you may see great store in Montaltus's Letters The Mystery of Jesuitisme and Mr. Clarksons late Book called The Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome I say is not Religion as much concerned about all these differences and all the rest among you which make many Horse-loads yea I think Cart-loads of Volumes as it is in the colour of the Preachers Cloaths or the Meat he eateth And are not Protestants that is meer Christians disowning Popery as justifiable in their Unity and Charity for taking Men to be of the same Religion who use not the same Garments Gestures and Ceremonies and that bear with differences herein as your Church that beareth with all these loads of different Doctrines in your most Learned Famous Doctors and not in the weaker Priests alone even whether excommunicate Kings may be killed or no and whether the Pope hath Power to put down and set up Emperours and Kings If you say that your One Religion and One Church hath no such difference it must be by saying that you all agree to Gregory the seventh in Concil Rom. Innoc. 3. in Concil Lateran on the worser side and all own the Doctors cited by H. Fowlis aforesaid But indeed I must speak better of you even that some are of a better mind whom Goldastus hath gathered and preserved and divers of the Learned Men of France and some in Spain But we think the difference even between the Prelatists Presbyterians Independants yea and the moderate Anabaptists to be far less than these which your unanimous agreeing Church doth constantly bear with without Silencing Imprisoning Ejecting or Condemning or so much as disowning the judgments of the worser side He that readeth Parsons on one side and Watson's Quodlibets on the other Barclay and Witherington on one side and Zuarez and the far greater prevalent Party on the other will either wonder at the strength of your Unity which no doctrinal differences even about the Blood of Kings can at all dissolve or else he may wonder at the laxe and sandie temperament of such Protestants as cannot bear with a Man that readeth not in their Book and singeth not in their Tune and is still crying out against others as Sectaries because they have piped to them and they have not danced and such as no Man can live quietly within reach of unless they swallow every Morsel which they cut for them having Throats neither wider or at least no narrower than theirs As if King Henry the eighth's days were the measure of true Discipline when one Man was burnt for being too far from Popery and another hanged or beheaded for being Popish and it was hard to know the middle Region and harder to know how long it would be calm till strangers cryed Deus bone quomodo hic vivunt Gentes But as none are more cruel in Wars than Cowards nor in Robberies than Women nor any more gentle and pitiful than valiant experienced Souldiers so few are so insolent and bloody obtruders of their Dictates and Wills upon the World as those that being least able to prove them good have nothing but Inquisitions and Prisons Silencings and Banishings Fire and Faggot effectually to make them good But if St. James be in the right who saith that Pure Religion and undefiled is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the World then certainly the Jesuits Morals and the Mystery of Jesuitism and Clarkson's Roman Practical Divinity and Fowlis's Treasons of the Papists contain more of the concerns of Religion than preaching in a consecrated or unconsecrated place and than eating Flesh Fish or neither in Lent or on Fridays doth O the strange difference between your Unity and Concord and the Protestants How fast is yours How loose is ours And it is to be considered we pretend not to so much perfection in this world as ever to expect that all Men should be just of the same Size and Complexion or speak the same Language or have all the same Opinions Thoughts or Words If we can keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace in the seven Points named by the Apostle Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. so far as we have attained do walk by the same Rule of Love and Peace and mind the same things till God reveal more to such as differ Phil. 3. we shall be glad of such a measure of Union For we believe it impossible to be perfect in Concord while most yea all are so wofully imperfect in Knowledge Faith Love and Obedience We wait for perfection of all in Heaven and we find that few things in the World ever did so much against Unity as pretending to more than is to be hoped for and laying ill on so high terms and so many as we know will never be received Therefore our Mutual Love and forbearance with different Forms and Circumstances is agreeable to the Principles of our Religion But for you that pretend to Unity Concord and Infallible Judgement to tolerate Cart-loads of Doctrinal Controversies divers Expositions of many hundred Texts of Scripture divers readings of the Text it self contrary Doctrines about God's Grace about all the Ten Commandments about the Estates and Lives of Kings and never so much as to condemn either side nor silence the Preachers never imprison them or banish them five miles from Cities and

and sacred Scripture and that henceforth it shall be lawful for no Man to Preach or Teach the contrary Where was this Tradition kept before that was so hard a Controversie till now 2. And do not General Councils bring in Novelties I cited formerly the words of Cajetan in his Oration in the Council at the Laterane under Leo 10. charging the Council of Constance Basil and Pisa with Novelty and such Novelty as would have quite defaced the Church and was inconsistent with it And Pighius chargeth them with the like Yea I told you before where he saith that General Councils themselves are a Novelty devised by Constantine 3. Be not General Councils themselves approved or reprobated at the pleasure of the Pope What a number of reprobated Councils were there that yet were as numerous as the approved and as lawfuly called and assembled Bellarmine instanceth in the 2. of Ephesus Constance Basil and many more Of which more before II. Another of their deceits is by pretending to Vinc. Lerinensis Rule quod ab omnibus ubique semper c. as if Antiquity and Universality were on their side I must remember that I have long ago confuted these and the rest of their deceits in my Key for Catholicks Yet I will briefly speak here to these two 1. For Antiquity we willingly stand to it and to the rejecting of all Novelty in Religion But we must have better proof than the word of our Grand-fathers or a Priest 1. Is any of their Books or Traditions elder than the holy Scripture 2. Either the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. have been sure Keepers of Antiquity or not If yea then we may take their Testimony as well as the Church of Romes If not why may not you prove as ill Keepers of it as they 3. But are they not certain Novelties that you would impose on us under the colour of Antiquity Read but Pet. Moulin de Novit Papismi or Mr. Th. Doelittles Discourse in the Morning Lectures against Popery and you shall see the Novelty of your Religion fully proved Take now but these few instances 1. Your very Patriarchate Primacie Claim of Universality General Councils are all proved Novelties before 2. Your own Writers confess that the denying the People Christs Blood or the Cup in the Lords Supper is a Novelty that prevailed by Custom by little and little and was not common long before the Council at Constance Dare you say that it was so from the beginning or of old 3. Can you possibly believe that your forbidding men to read the Scriptures in a known Tongue without a Licence is not a Novelty if ever you read Chrysostom Augustine Jerome or any thing of the Ancients 4. Is it not a Novelty for the publick Prayers of the Church to be ordinarily made in a Tongue not understood by the generality of the People But I must stop 2. And as to Universality I have before proved 1. That by their own Confession most of the Churches and Bishops of the World have been against them 2. That at this day they are not above the third part of Christians Too small an Universal Church for any man of Charity and Consideration to be a member of A Sect that call themselves All the Church Jacob. a Vitr Histor Orient Cap. 77. tells us that the Churches in the Easterly part of Asia alone exceeded in multitude both the Greek and Latine Churches As for their telling us that all these followed Dioscorus a Heretick or were Nestorians and that all the Abassines Armenians Georgians Syrians Coptics Greeks Protestants c. are Hereticks or Schismaticks I have answered it so oft at large that I must not repeat what I have said Only 1. I say that if the Censures and Revilings of Adversaries can un-christen all others and appropriate the Church to them that have least Charity perhaps the Qualiers may shortly have as fair a Title as the Papists If General Councils be not to be believed when they Hereticate Popes I will not believe a Railer when he Hereticates most of the Christian World whom he never saw or spake with Sure that man judgeth persons unheard 2. I repeat the words of Barchardus one of your own that long lived among them and spake what he saw p. 325 326. And is for those that we judge to be damned Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites Maronites Georgians and the like I found them to be for the most part good and simple men and living sincerely towards God and Men they are of great abstinence c. And p. 324. he saith that the Syrians Greeks Armenians Georgians Nestorians Nubians Jubeans Chaldeans Maronites Ethiopians Egyptians and many other Nations of Christians there inhabit and that some are Schismaticks not subject to the Pope and others called Hereticks as the Nestorians Jacobites c. but there are many in these Sects that are very simple knowing nothing of Heresies devoted to Christ materating the Flesh with Fastings and clothed with the most simple Garments so that they far excel the very RELIGIOUS of the Church of Rome And p. 323. of the Papists whom he calleth by the Name of Christians as if it were proper to them he saith There are in the Land of Promise men of every Nation under Heaven and every Nation liveth after their own Rites and to speak the very truth to our own great confusion there are none found in it that are worse and more corrupt in Manners than Christians that is Papists 3. If greater Errours and Vices than are among the Armenians the Abassines Syrians c. will allow us to reject men from our Communion how much more cause have we to renounce Communion with Popes and Papists than with these Churches 4. How can any man say that Nations and Countries are to be rejected as Hereticks unless the single persons guilty were tryed and heard when there is no Heresie but what is in individuals and no Law of God or Reason condemneth the innocent for the guilties faults much less all Posterity for their Ancestors III. But they never gain more than by aggravating the Divisions that are among other Christians and boasting of the Unity of their Church And the Contentions that have been among us have given them such advantage as that some in the sense of their former guilt having been Sect-masters themselves have turned Papists as thinking it the state of Union and having found no settlement in those ways which they have tryed because they never rightly understood the true temperament of the Christian Religion which they professed they think to find it in that way that they never tryed as sick men turn from side to side for ease while the cause of their weariness and pain is within them and turneth with them Here let the Reader note 1. That Fools judge of Differences in Religion by the noise that it makes in the World but men of Reason judge of it by the greatness and number of the points of