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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25228	Some queries to Protestants answered and an explanation of the Roman Catholick's belief in four great points considered : I. concerning their church, II. their worship, III. justification, IV. civil government.	Altham, Michael, 1633-1705.	1686 (1686)	Wing A2934; ESTC R8650	37,328	44

not we who by force and perswasion and by all manner of Artifices endeavour to draw People from the Unity and Obedience of the Holy Catholick Church unto new Congregations Institutions and Rules of their own framing opposite to and destructive of the former Like the Scribes and Pharisees of old they compass Sea and Land to make one Proselyte and when he is made they make him twofold more the Child of Hell than themselves Matth. 23.15 Qu. 13. Whether Persons so acting are better than Rebels and Usurpers or such as Simon Magus and those that deserted the Apostles to follow him and therefore to be avoided as Persons separated from the flock of Christ Ans That they are no better than such as he hath here named and described we willingly grant and upon that very account is it that we now avoid Communion with the present Church of Rome Thus have I given an Answer and I hope a sufficient one to these Enquiries and that short without entring upon discourses of things not demanded or at least not implyed in those demands and so observed the Method propounded by the Enquirer An Explanation of Roman Catholick's Belief concerning these IV. Points Their Church Worship Justification and Civil Government as it was presented to some Persons of Quality for their particular Satisfaction THese are four great Points and if well and truly explained the Explanation of them may be of very great use but if otherwise if he only guild the Pill that the Patient may be more easily perswaded to swallow it it may prove of dangerous Consequence instead of informing it may debauch the minds and understandings of men Let us therefore look before we leap let us consider well whether this Explainer hath been honest and faithfull in his Explanation before we receive all he saith for Gospel And for your assistance herein I shall set down his own words then animadvert thereupon and when that is done present you with both for your better satisfaction The EXPLAINER 1. We believe the Holy Scriptures to be of Divine Inspiration and Infallible Authority and whatsoever is therein contained we firmly assent unto as to the word of God the Author of all truth But since in the Holy Scriptures there are some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction we therefore profess for the ending of all Controversies in our Religion and setling of Peace in our Consciences to submit our private Judgments to the Judgment of the Church in a free general Council The ANIMADVERTER 1. The Explainer tells us that the Roman Catholicks do believe the Holy Scriptures to be of Divine Inspiration and Infallible Authority c. A very fair and good profession wherein we do heartily joyn with them And is it not a great pity there should be a secret reserve to spoil and overthrow it They believe this but is this all they believe Do they not believe also that some things which before the Church's definition of them might have been innocently disbelieved yet after they are once defined and determined by the Church to be matters of Faith and of equal Authority with any other things delivered by Christ and his Apostles Do they not believe also that some Apocryphal Books are of Divine Inspiration also and of as infallible Authority as the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles Do they not believe Traditions to be the unwritten Word of God to be divinely inspired and of Equal infallible Authority with the written Word If they do then the Explainer hath not been so fair and candid so just and faithfull as he ought to have been in his Explication though he hath told us the truth he hath not told us the whole truth And that they do believe all this though I might easily produce a Cloud of Witnesses and those none of the least admired of their own Authours yet because I design brevity I shall content my self at present with the Evidence and Authority of one of their most magnified Councils which they call both free and general though in truth it was neither and that is the Council of Trent Which Sess 4 8. Apr. de Canon Script takes the Books of Toby Judith Ecclesiasticus Wisdom and Maccabees into the Canon of Scripture though they could not but know that they never were in the Jewish Canon nor ever universally received by the Christian Church and anathematized all those who do not upon this Declaration believe them to be Canonical And the same Council in the same Sess professes to receive and reverence Traditions with no less pious Affection than the Books of the Old and New Testament and that not in matter of Rite and History only but of Faith and Manners also Now what is this but to add to the Scriptures and to accuse them of insufficiency and imperfection And if so then what doth this Explainer do but deceive those Persons of Quality to whom he presents this as the Summ of their Belief But the Explainer goes on and saith since in the Holy Scriptures there are some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unstable wrest to their own destruction And here I shall by the way only remarque these two things 1. The Apostle indeed saith there are some things hard but not impossible to be understood For if men will use the means if they will apply themselves with an humble and teachable temper of mind diligently to reade the Holy Scriptures if they will seriously meditate on what they reade and earnestly and devoutly pray unto God for the assistance and direction of his Holy Spirit therein the difficulty may be removed and they may be enabled rightly to understand those Scriptures at least so far as is necessary for them to know 2. The Apostle tells us to whom those things are hard to be understood viz. the ignorant and unstable So that the difficulty seems to be not in the things themselves but in the incapacities of men For if men will be ignorant still and not use the means to know better or if they will content themselves with some airy Notions which float and fluctuate in the brain without ever endeavouring to bring them to a consistency not only some but all things in Scripture and even the clearest declarations of the Church may be hard to be understood by them and so they will be as much at a loss in the one as in the other But how much this Text is misunderstood and misapplied a Reverend and Learned Divine of our Church in a Treatise intituled Search the Scriptures hath plainly demonstrated to which I refer the Reader But let us see what Inference he draws from hence Therefore saith he we profess for the ending of all Controversies in our Religion and settling of peace in our Consciences to submit our private Judgments to the Judgment of the Church in a free General Council In which Inference I cannot but remarque these things

King may with impunity be deposed or killed by any one saith Suarez Desens Fid. l. 6. c. 6. Sect. 24. The Pope can make that he who is a King shall be no King and then you are disobliged saith Bellarm. contr Barcl c. 7. The Secular power is subject to the Spiritual The Pope hath a sovereign power over Christian Kings and Princes to correct depose and appoint others in their places If a King be guilty of Heresie Schism or any intolerable crime against his People if he be guilty of negligence or sloth in his government if he fail in the performance of his Oaths and Promises or oppress the Church the Pope may divest him of his Royal Dignity saith Abrah Brovius de Pontif. Roman c. 46. p. 621. Col. 2. Which Book was printed at Cologne Anno 1619. and solemnly recommended and approved by his Superiours and Licensed by the Apostolick Inquisitor I might be infinite in instances of this kind but having almost wearied my self with raking in such a Dunghill I am not willing to tire my Reader too I shall therefore only produce one unexceptionable Witness more and that shall be their great and renowned Champion Bellarmine out of whose 5th Book De Romano Pontifice I shall take the pains to transcribe some passages and having subjoyned thereunto some instances of their practices suitable to their declared principles I shall then leave it to the judgment of any indifferent person what kind of Loyalty and Fidelity Sovereign Princes especially those who are of a different persuasion may hope to find from their Roman Catholick Subjects Bellarmine in the first Chapter of his fifth Book De Romano Pontifice having rejected two extreme Opinions concerning the Pope's power the one taught and maintained by Augustinus Triumphus Alvarus Pelagius Hostiensis and others of his own Communion viz. That the Pope by a Divine Right hath a most plenary power over all the World as well in Political as Ecclesiastical affairs And the other delivered by Calvin Peter Martyr Brentius and others whom he calls Hereticks viz. That the Pope as Pope hath not by Divine Right any Temporal power at all nor upon any account can command Secular Princes much less deprive them of their Kingdoms and Principalities and that Spiritual persons ought not to exercise Temporal Dominion He at last lays down a middle Opinion between both which he tells us is the common Opinion of Catholick Divines viz. That the Pope as Pope hath not directly and immediately any Temporal power but only a spiritual yet by virtue of that Spiritual power he hath indirectly at least a supreme power in Temporals This Opinion he undertakes to explain in his Sixth Chapter where he tells us That in Order to a Spiritual good he hath a Supreme Power of disposing all the Temporal things of all Christian People Which Power is just such over Princes as the Soul hath over the Body or sensitive Appetite by Virtue of this Power he may change Kingdoms and take them from one and give them to another he may make and alter suspend and abrogate Civil Laws as the Chief Spiritual Prince if it be for the safety of Souls In his Seventh Chapter he endeavours to prove this Exorbitant Power of the Pope by reasons all which are founded in the Subordination and Subjection of the Temporal to the Spiritual Sword which is a Foundation that will certainly fail him However upon this Foundation he thus builds The Ecclesiastical Republick can command and compel the Temporal which is indeed its Subject to change the Administration and to depose Princes and to appoint others when it cannot otherwise defend the Spiritual good And again it is not lawfull for Christians to suffer an Infidel or Heretical King if he endeavour to draw his Subjects to his Heresie or Unbelief But to judge whether a King do draw to Heresie or not belongeth to the Pope to whom the Care of Religion is committed therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge whether a King be to be deposed or not And if any one ask why the Christians of old did not depose Nero and Diocletian and Julian the Apostate and Valens the Arian He roundly answers it was not because they wanted Right but because they wanted Power to do it But lest any scrupulous Christian should boggle at those horrid things which these declared Principles must of necessity lead them to as Rebellion Murder Breach of Faith Violation of Oaths c. He will tell them that they are not answerable for any of these things For if the Pope should mistake and command Vice and forbid Vertue yet it were a sin against Conscience for the Church not to believe those Vices to be good and those Vertues to be evil All these instances that I have now laid before you were of men who lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome and most of them men of great Eminency both for their Parts and Places and therefore very likely to understand the Religion they professed Now either these men or our Explainer must be very much out and strangely unacquainted with the Principles of their Religion or else the Explainer must industriously design to put a chear upon those Persons of Quality to whom he presents his Scheme For nothing can be more different than his Explanation and this Declaration which these men have left upon Record But I think the choice is very easie which of these ought to be believed in this case and if this Cloud of Witnesses carry it as undoubtedly they will against one single unauthorized Explainer then certainly he was in the wrong box when the so much boasted of the Loyalty of the Roman Catholicks And now I shall only subjoyn an account of some few of their Practices correspondent to these Principles and they being put together will I suppose sufficiently discover the mistake of our Explainer Leo Isaurus Emperour of Constantinople was excommunicated by Pope Gregory the II d. his Country given away to the Lombards by which means he and his Successors lost all the Western Empire which the Pope and the French King afterwards shared between them Henry the IV th Emperour of Germany was excommunicated by Pope Gregory the VII th his Subjects absolved from their Obedience Rodulph Duke of Sueden and Burgundy set up against him to whom a Crown was sent by the Pope with this Inscription The Rock gave the Crown to Peter and Peter gives it to Rodulph Childericus King of France by the Advice and Authority of Pope Zachary the I st had his Head shaven was thrust into a Monastery and Pipinus Son of Carolus Martellus who was but a Subject and Servant to the King was anointed King in his stead Henry the III d. King of France was killed at the Siege of Paris with an empoysoned Knife by a Jacobine Fryar called Jaques Clement Which Murther Pope Sixtus the V th by a solemn Oration in the Consistory September the 2d 1589. commended to the Skies as Rarum insigne memorablile facinus So publickly was the King killing Doctrine owned by them at that time And what effect this Papal approbation did produce is evident for upon this encouragement King Henry the IV th Successor to Henry the III d. was also stabbed with a consecrated Dagger by a Jesuite named Ravilliac How frequent the excommunicating and deposing of Princes the absolving of Subjects from their Duty and Obedience and the stirring up of Tumults and Seditions against them by Popes and Papalins hath heretofore been History is so full that it would be an Herculean labour to transcribe all the instances thereof Now these declared Principles and avowed Practices of Roman Catholicks being put together and compared with our Explainer's profession may sufficiently evince how much he hath abused those Persons of Quality and how unfairly and dishonestly he hath dealt with them in his Explanation of the Roman Catholick's Belief in this Point But one would think he durst not deal thus considering what a solemn Protestation he makes in the Close of his Explanation For thus he concludes These we sincerely and solemnly profess as in the sight of God the searcher of all Hearts taking the words plainly and simply in their usual and familiar sense without any Equivocation or Mental Reservation whatsoever Were we not so well acquainted with the Power of Dispensations and the force of Mental Reservation among them did we not know that by these Artifices they can elude the most solemn Protestations make void all Oaths and Promises and dissolve any the most sacred Bonds which can be invented to oblige men it would look very uncharitably to suspect any man after such a solemn Protestation But that they can do all this and think they can do it with a safe Conscience notwithstanding their Protestation to the contrary is a ruled Case among their Casuists I shall only at present trouble you with one instance which is very applicable to the case in hand and with that conclude On occasion of the Powder-plot here in England an Oath of Allegiance was thought necessary to prevent such horrid attempts in time to come which a Roman Doctor cited by Arch-Bpishop Usher under this Character B. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistol I. R. Impres An. 1609. taking notice of laughs aloud at the simplicity of it His words are worth remembring Sed vide in tanta astutia quanta simplicitas c. But see what simplicity here is in so great Craft When he had placed all his security in that Oath he thought he had framed such a manner of Oath with so many Circumstances which no man could any way dissolve with a safe Conscience But he could not see that if the Pope dissolve the Oath all its Knots whether of being faithfull to the King or of admitting no Dispensation are accordingly dissolved Yea I will say a thing more admirable you know I believe that an unjust Oath if it be evidently known to be such or openly declared such it obligeth no man That the King's Oath is un●… is sufficiently declared by the Pastor of the Church himself You see now that the Obligatian of it is vanished into smoke and that the ●…nd which so many wise men thought was made of Iron was 〈…〉 Straw FINIS