the substance and nature of Bread and Wine The Schoolmen confess Transubstantiation is not Ancient And two of the most famous of them plainly deny it The Administring the Sacrament in One kind is no older than the Council of Constance as was noted before the practice of the whole Church and of Rome it self being otherwise till then Finally many things were never decreed and imposed as necessary to be believed till the late Council of Trent such as the equalling Apocryphal books and Traditions to the undoubted Canon of Scripture Justification by the merit of Good works c. Which Council of Trent was never fully owned by the Catholicks of France Nor was it ever received as a lawful Council by this English Nation It would be too tedious to run over all the rest of those Points wherein the Roman differs from the English Church or else it might be shewed that the Appeals to Rome and the Pope's Vniversal claim Veneration of Relicks Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Pilgrimages c. were wholly unknown to the three first Centuries as the ingenuous Romanists will confess and our Writers have largely proved By all which it appears that the Old Religion of Rome for the first three hundred years had no formal Invocation of Saints nor Angels no Purgatory nor Prayers to be delivered thence no Images no Transubstantiation no half Communion no Jubilees no Indulgences ' no constrained Coelibate no Prayers in an unknown Tongue no customary Auricular Confession no Apocrypha in her Canon of Scripture nor the rest Now if you strip your Church of these Doctrines she retains scarce any thing but the Protestant Articles of the Church of England But if you take Rome with these Additions her Religion is not so Old by far as the Religion of this Church Perhaps it will be pretended Though these Decrees were made in later Ages yet the Determinations were made by vertue of Apostolical Traditions preserved in the Roman Church from the very beginning and upon this Pretence your Late Writers of Controversie have generally laid aside all Arguments from Scripture and Ancient Fathers and resolve all into Oral Tradition and the Infallibility of the Roman Church But what is this but to confess that the Scriptures the Ancient Fathers and all written Records which are Impartial witnesses do make against them only these unknown Traditions which are only in their own keeping and may be of their own devising these they say bear witness for them which is to make themselves Judges in their own Cause and may justly occasion your enquiry whether the former Popes knew of these Traditions or no if not how then came the later Popes to the knowledge of them If they knew of them of old why did they let them sleep so long and suffer the Church to erre for so many years for want of them Did they discharge their Vniversal Headship well in this Concealment But in very truth it is Evident the first Popes knew of no such Traditions and the later Popes have invented them to support their New designs which appears by the Ancient Popes declaring directly contrary to these pretended Apostolical Traditions of which take a few Examples Pope Gaius writes That the Righteousness of the Saints avails nothing to our Pardon or Justification Pope Gelasius denies Transubstantiation as was noted just now The famous Gregory the Great saith He himself was the Emperors Servant and owed him obedience and declares That God had given the Emperor power over Priests as well as others The same Pope disowns the Title of Vniversal Bishop as unfit for him or any other He also determines that it is lawful for Priests who cannot contain to marry And he allows Images for History and Memory only A later than he also in the Canon Law Decrees that in such Diocess where there be people of Divers Languages The Bishop shall provide fit men to celebrate Divine offices and Minister the Sacraments of the Church according to the diversity of Rites and variety of their Languages Decretal Greg. l. 1. Tit. 31. cap. 14. The aforesaid Pope Gregory the First affirms that the Book of Maccabees is not Canonical And as well the Ordinary Gloss as the Old Editions of the Bibles which were allowed by the Roman Bishops and used in that Church before the Council of Trent do all distinguish between the Canonical Books and those which the Protestant Church now call Apocrypha Yet the contrary to all these hath been afterwards decreed upon pretence of being Apostolical Traditions By which account you may see if your Prejudices hinder not that the present Roman Church as it differs from the Church of England retains neither the Old Religion of the Scriptures nor that of the Primitive Church in general nay nor that of the Ancient Church of Rome for they have omitted some Points added others and altered so many that though Rome keep the Old Name it doth not keep the Old Faith We may now seek Rome in the midst of Rome as Juvencus Vitalis said Nor can it be denied saith Another but the Roman Church is not a little different from its Ancient beauty and splendor There is not the Faith the Manners nor the Worship of the Primitive Roman Church and therefore according to S. Ambrose They that have not Peter ' s Faith cannot succeed to Peter ' s Inheritance and as S. Hierome observes They are not the Sons of the Saints who possess their places but they which follow their Works And That only saith Lactantius is the Catholick Church which retains the true Worship of God You might have seen and heard in Rome of Old a Bishop without a Triple Crown or the Title of Vniversal Churches without Images Priests under no Vows of Single life Litanies without any names of Saints or Ora pro nobis the Mass celebrated in a known Tongue Bibles calling divers books Apocrypha which are now reckoned Canonical Scripture People not enslaved by Auricular Confession not debarred of the Cup not frighted with Purgatory nor impoverished with purchasing Prayers and Indulgences to save them from thence c. To conclude therefore Why may you not justly desert them who have in so many things departed from the Old Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles believed by the Ancient Fathers and received by the first and best Bishops of that same Church If you desire to be really of the Old Religion nay if you would hold the Faith of the Primitive Roman Church you may come much nearer to it by embracing the Religion of your own Country than by retaining the Opinions of the Modern Church of Rome which are most of them meer Innovations And though you have reverenced them while you supposed them Ancient and Apostolical yet we hope you will now renounce them when they are evidently discovered to be Gibeonites disguised on purpose to deceive and
were never necessary they have other devices to perswade you into a belief of coming off well at the end of your life howsoever ill you have spent it The Hereticks in Tertullians time said It was a meritorious thing to be of their Party And you are told it is a ready way of Salvation to die in the Communion of the Roman Church and if you can but receive the Sacraments of that Church and be Absolved by one of their Priests you scarce doubt of obtaining Heaven at last and if you have no good works of your own they perswade you the Church can sell you the Merits of the Saints or if you should drop into Purgatory by the way the pains of that they say are not endless and if you give liberally on your Death-beds or if any others afterwards give for you to purchase so many Masses and other Prayers for your Soul you will ere long be delivered from thence All which notorious delusions do miserably deceive poor men and most mischievously encourage them to put off their Repentance and to resolve not to be troubled with holiness in the way since they fancy they shall come off so easily in the end and alas they are as false as they are mischievous for the Ancient Fathers unanimously affirm no mans estate can be altered after this life But as the last day of a mans life finds him so the last day of the World finds him Nor will any thing help thee saith S. Augustine but what is done while thou art here Out of innumerable such Testimonies that of S. Salvian may serve Although a man should have so pious a Son who for alleviating his Fathers punishment would desire to give all the goods he left behind him it would do him no good for the Piety of the Son can do nothing to procure that Rest to a man after Death which his own Impiety and Infidelity hath denied him Finally these and the like Principles make so many infamous men and women so many Thieves and Murtherers debauched and prophane persons to take Sanctuary in the Roman Church because the Tenets thereof seem not to oblige them to forsake their evil ways but reconcile wickedness and Salvation together so that this Religion tends not to perswade men to Holiness of life and therefore is no good Religion I grant there are some Persons in that Church who live better than these Opinions engage them to do and do not draw those Conclusions into their practice which naturally follow from these Principles but that is only an evidence of the excellent vertue of such Persons but no proof of the goodness of these Doctrines and if these men be Holy in a Religion which gives such encouragement to evil doubtless they would be more holy by far if they were taught better things I shall only add that as the Roman Church is too loose in matters pertaining to Gods Laws so she is too strict in matters pertaining to her own Constitutions like the Old Pharisees who Tithed Mint and Annise and neglected the weightier matters of the Law Matth. xxiii which is a great obstruction to real Holiness when men place Religion in Ceremonies and slight things for while they are curious in these matters they neglect greater and think by observing the Rules of the Church they compensate for passing by the Laws of God your own Ordinary Gloss saith That is Superstition when Religion is placed in observing the Ordinances of men And if so then your wonderful strictness in Crossing Bowing using Holy Water Abstinence on certain days wearing Crosses c. in which you have placed so much Religion are no better than Superstition It cannot be denied that most Roman Catholicks are more afraid to eat flesh on a Fasting-day than to curse or swear they will be drunk on a Holy-day which God forbids but not work on it because the Church forbids it many of them dare fornicate and debauch who dare not neglect Confession nor read a book written by a supposed Heretick And generally they are punctual in crossing sprinkling bowing and observing all Orders of the Church even such as live in the open breach of Gods Commandements and yet fancy themselves more sure of Heaven than the most pious and holy Protestant Thus this Religion is too strict where God gives us more liberty and too remiss where his Holy Law hath bound us with Eternal and Indispensable bonds and it is designed to promote Obedience to the Roman Church rather than Inward holiness towards God The effect of all which Considerations is this That whosoever sincerely desires to glorifie God and worship him with a rational Devotion and whoever would imitate him by a Holy Life ought not to chuse or retain such a Religion whose Principles tend so evidently to the dishonour of Gods Name the hindrance of true Devotion and to the rendring a Holy life unnecessary And as it was proved before that the appropriated Articles of the Roman Faith were not Ancient nor induced for pious ends nor propagated by honest means so now it is evidenced the Articles are not good in their own nature and therefore there is no reason why you should not renounce them unless you retain them in meer Reverence to the Authority of the Pope who doth impose them which Matter is the Subject of our last Enquiries SECTION V. Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient Authority to impose the said Opinions upon all Christian Churches THe Last and almost the only shelter that your Doctors flie to at this day for the defence of your Principles is That the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies and the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church and hereby their Adherents are awed into the retaining all his Decrees of what nature soever they be But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these Titles and Authority till you have seriously examined by what Right the Pope laies claim to them for his Power had need be very great and his Proofs very good upon the Credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious Articles of Religion some of which we ought not to receive though preached by an Angel Gal. 1. 8 9. And first though we stand not much upon Titles you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first Ages and when this Title came into use it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome but other Bishops and Priests are styled Vicars of Christ also even by a Pope of Rome as also by the Old French Emperours and by our own Saxon Law So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this Title or any special Priviledge by virtue thereof Secondly As to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supream Head of the Catholick Church throughout the World you may remember
to receive Appeals in a famous Council of Carthage An. 419. which Canons they pretended were made in the aforesaid Nicene Council but these Canons wholly differed from all the best Manuscripts of that Council then extant particularly from two eminent ones which the African Fathers sent for from Constantinople and Alexandria nor do they agree with those genuine Editions of the Nicene Council now extant and indeed the Council of Carthage received not these pretended Canons of Nice but esteemed them to have been corrupted as we do at this day Not long after to abet the Roman Supremacy Pope Leo writing to Theodosius the Emperor cites a Canon of a particular and dubious Council at Sardiâ—a of later Date and less Authority affirming it to be a Canon of the general Council at Nice The Edition of the Councils put out by Dionysius Exiguus about An. 520. being for a long time the sole approved Copy extant in these parts of the World doth in favour of the Popes Supremacy leave out divers Canons even of General Councils which seem to make against it though the said Canons are recorded in Zonaras and Balsamon and in this Age confessed to have been made in those Councils by the Romanists themselves but in the Time when the Supremacy was in hatching it was not thought expedient those Canons should be known It were endless to reckon up all the Additions Diminutions and Alterations which all the Roman Editions of the Councils since are guilty of and because an ingenious Essay hath been made that way by a late Author I shall refer my Reader thither and out of infinite Examples conclude with one Evident piece of Falsification The xxxv Canon of the Council of Laodicea Forbids the faithful to call on the name of Angels which being a condemnation of the Doctrine and Practice of Rome in Praying to Angels The Later Editions of this Council have impudently put in Angulos Angles or Corners instead of Angelos Angels though all the Greek Copies and Fathers read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and all the old Latin Exemplars have Angelos Yea Pope Adrian himself before this worship of Angels came up read it Angelos in that Epitome of Canons which he sent to Charles the Great An. 773. Thus they corrupt the Councils to suit them to their own Opinions Nor have single Fathers and Ancient Authors fared better S. Cyprian put out by Pamelius is altered in many places contrary to the Ancient Copies for Example where the Father saith the Church is founded Super Petram Pamelius changes it into Super Petrum upon Peter instead of upon a Rock And Ludovicus Vives a Romanist assures us that there are Ten or Twelve lines positively asserting Purgatory put into the Printed Copies of S. Aug. de Civitate Dei lib. 21. cap. 24. contrary to the Ancient Manuscripts Fulbertus Carnotensis quotes S. August saying of the Sacramental bread This then is a figure the Roman Editions put in As a Heretick will say when indeed S. Augustine says so and speaks his own sense Aimonius speaking of the Eighth Council saith They determined about Images otherwise than the Orthodox Fathers had Decreed and so Baronius reads But the Modern Printed Copies quite contrary put in according as the Orthodox Fathers had Decreed But why do I stand upon particular Instances This wickedness which all other men account the same Villany with suborning false Witnesses stopping the mouths of the True and counterfeiting Hands and Seals is owned by the present Church of Rome And Sixtus Senensis doth highly extol Pope Pius 5 th for his most holy Decree to burn all Books which were accounted Heretical To purge and cleanse all Catholick Authors and especially the Writings of the Fathers Now in what manner they effect this most holy work the Belâ—ick Inquisitors appointed by the Roman See shall tell you We strike out say they many Errors in other of the Ancients we extenuate and excuse them or by feigning a Commentitious gloss either deny or fix a commodious sense to their words Thus they served S. Ambrose his works cancelling and altering whole pages together contrary to all the Old Manuscripts as appeared by the Original Papers which Savarius the Stationer shewed to Francis Junius according to which the Inquisitors had ordered him to Print that Edition Lugdun An. 1559. Thus they left the story of Pope Joan out of the Copies of Anastasius Biblioth though the Manuscripts had the said story in them as Marquar Freherus testified who lent them the said Manuscripts And I might fill a Volume with Instances of like unjust dealings but I will only add the memorable account which Boxhornius one of your Divinity Professors at Lovain gives of himself viz. That he having been employed by the Inquisitors to strike out at least six hundred places of the Ancients which seemed to make against the Roman Doctrines was so troubled in mind upon it that it was an occasion of his turning Protestant and made him resolve to quit that Religion which could not defend it self without such manifest Impostures And I wish the consideration thereof might have the same effect upon you for the matter of Fact is so evident that the Index Expurgatorius the Book which directs these Falsifications is now come into Protestant hands to the eternal Infamy of the Roman Church whose people cannot rationally trust to any Author which comes through their Priests dishonest hands And since false Books are invented true and genuine Writers altered and corrupted or else wholly prohibited if they seem to make against them for which cause Clement 8 th puts the Bible into his Index of prohibited Books and all Editions but their own condemned and burnt by the Roman Church the people must needs be deluded into a perswasion that all these New Doctrines are Primitive Truths when indeed this abominable Forging evidently shews that the Pope and his Conclave think that both Scripture and Antiquity do make against these Innovations and would discover the Imposture if they were suffered to speak out to whom I may justly apply the words of Arnobius To intercept what is written and to design to smother published Records is not to defend the Gods but to fear the Testimony of the Truth And because Good men as S. Augustine saith will not deceive but neither good nor evil men would willingly be deceived I may suppose that the most Devoted Romanists cannot but discern how unsafe he is in believing as those men teach him who make no Conscience to invent impose and pretend things never so false provided they may thereby advance their Churches Interest or their own private ends They who dare write Lies will not be afraid to speak them and they who corrupt the Remains of the Holy Saints deceased are not to be trusted with the Souls of the living And whoever gives himself up to such Guides unnaturally
Master and the Servants the same in all outward expressions only differing in a nice School-distinction must needs be an affront to the King of Saints If you have any tenderness or zeal for the honour of Jesus it cannot but be offensive to you to observe how your Legends tell of greater miracles wrought by some of their fabulous Saints than ever Jesus wrought To hear one of your Church say That Christ did nothing which S. Francis did not do yea that he did more than Christ himself What is more injurious to the honour of the Divine Majesty than your S. Bonaventure's putting in the name of the Virgin Mary into Davids Psalms instead of the name of God To have her adored by the Heathenish Title of the Queen of Heaven and invocated by the impious name of Mother of the whole Trinity These things are rather Blasphemy than Devotion and as dishonourable to God as they are Dissonant from Antiquity Let none saith Epiphanius adore Mary but why do I mention a Woman nay not any Man this Reverence is due only to God nor are the Angels capable of such glorification Fifthly The supposing a necessity of superadding the Saints Merits and the daily Sacrifice of the Mass to the Merit of that one Offering for sin which Jesus made on the Cross Heb. ix 28. is an evident lessening the value and sufficiency of the Death of Christ Sixthly The calling of the Holy Scripture a Nose of Wax a Leaden Rule and an Inky Gospel The putting in the Apocryphal books wherein are some things wicked and others notoriously false into an equal rank with the Word of God indited by the Spirit own Traditions to be equal in value to it are palpable dishonours to God who writ the Holy Scripture These things my Friends can hardly be reckoned matters tending to the honour of God unless you can suppose the cancelling his Laws disparaging his Nature undervaluing the Merits the Mercies and the Miracles of Jesus by cheap and odious Comparisons the diminution of his worship and making him sharer with his Servants therein and the vilifying of his Divine word be no dishonour to him you pretend to serve Secondly Let us examine whether these Doctrines do assist you in the Devout worshipping of God It is very suspicious that Church doth not teach a right way of serving God which deceives you in the first Principle of Religion viz. That God alone is to be worshipped a Sentence so odious to the Roman Doctors that the Index Expurgatorius blots it out of the indices of S. Athanasius and S. Augustines Works and if they could do it undiscovered they would blot it out of the Bible also Matth. iv 10. But there it shall stand for ever to reprove those who divide Religious worship between God and his Creatures thereby diminishing that Devotion which intirely belongs to the Divine Majesty since affections are most vigorous when placed upon one Object and if they be dispersed among many grow weak and trifling whence we may conclude the Protestant who worships none but God is the greater lover of him and worships with a more united and servent Devotion As for your Publick worship it is attended with so many Ceremonies as must needs disturb the Devotion as well of the Priests as the People there is such frequent bowing crossing prostration sprinkling with Holy water beating the breast smoaking with Incense c. that the mind is taken off from a steady intention upon the inward and main part of the Duty while it is entertained with such variety of outward Rites For our mind saith Quintilian cannot sincerely intend its whole self upon many things at once whatever new object it looks upon it gives over the thoughts of that which it first propounded to it self And this is most evident where the Objects are so different as sensible and intellectual things are For where the Senses and their perceptions are vigorously employed there the Intellectual Powers cease to act as a great Philosopher observes So that it is your Passions and your Fancies that are wrought upon not your Mind nor the higher faculties of your Soul by these numerous Ceremonies and therefore that which you think Devotion I doubt is but a fantastical and false fire not kindled by the love of God nor warming your nobler Powers at all and those steady rational and spiritual desires which flow from an undisturbed contemplation of the Divine Goodness and are the very life of Prayer I fear you are strangers to being so often taken off and diverted by variety of sensible Representations Again the making all your Publick prayers in an Vnknown Tongue destroys all true Devotion in the People S. Clemens of Alex. tells us of some Heathens who thought those Prayers most effectual which were uttered in a barbarous Language But Christians know that Prayer is the desiring something of God and if the Mind be not exercised in this desire it avails nothing but where the words are not understood the mind cannot desire the things mentioned so that none can properly pray in an Vnknown Tongue nor so much as rationally say Amen 1 Cor. xiv 16. By this absurd Practice therefore you who are unlearned spend the time of the Publick offices in admiring and gazing not in joyning with the Priest or Praying And because the people have no employment while the Mass lasteth they spend the whole time usually in talking and laughing privately as those who Travel in Catholick Countries do inform us And it may occasion your wonder why the Roman Church should so obstinately refuse to reform so irrational a Custom which S. Paul hath written a whole Chapter to condemn 1 Cor. xiv The force of whose Arguments and Authority hath made your wisest Doctors declare against it By S. Paul ' s Doctrine saith Card. Cajetan it is better for the edifying of the Church that Publick prayers were made in the Vulgar Tongue than in Latin To the same purpose Lyra And your Rhemish Annotators say When a man prayeth in a strange Tongue which himself understandeth not it is not so fruitful for Instruction to him as if he knew particularly what he prayed Gabriel Biel also gives several Reasons why Prayers should be in a known Tongue saying It is better 1. For stirring up Devotion 2. for enlightning the Mind 3. for retaining the things in memory 4. for keeping the thoughts from wandring Yet your admired Church will oppose Reason and Scripture and deprive all the Common people that are of her Communion of the exercise of their Devotion in her Offices rather than so far seem to confess a fault as to amend it chusing rather to let you lose the benefit of worshipping God than to reform the most unjust Customes which she hath once espoused but if you be wise if that Church will not pray in such a Language as you can