examples of such like sophisms Whatsoever Nation is the true Kingdom of Spain is proud and cruel against Protestants But there is no protection there due to any that are not of that Kingdom therefore there is no protection due to any that are not proud and cruel Or whatsoever Nation is the true Kingdom of France acknowledgeth the Pope but no protection is due from the Governours to any that are not of that Kingdom therefore no protection is due to any that acknowledge not the Pope Or what ever Nation is the Kingdom of Ireland in the daies of Queen Elizabeth was for the Earl of Tyrone but there was no right of Inheritance for any that were not of that Nation therefore there was no right of Inheritance for any that was not for the Earl of Tyrone Or suppose that you could have proved it of all the Church If you had lived four hundred years after Christ you might as well have argued thus Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ is against kneeling in Adoration on the Lords daies But there is no Salvation to be had out of that Congregation of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ therefore there is no Salvation to be had out of that Congregation which is against kneeling on the Lords day c. But yet 1. There was Salvation to be had in that Congregation without being of that opinion 2. And there is now Salvation to be had in a Congregation that is not of that opinion as you will confess Or whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ doth hold the Canticles and the Epistle to Philemon to be Canonical Scripture and so have done c. But there is no Salvation to be had out of the true Church therefore there is no Salvation to be had out of that Congregation which holdeth the Canticles and Epistle to Philemon to be Canonical Scripture But yet 1. Salvation is to be had in that Church without holding it 2. and its possible hereafter a Church may deny those two books and yet you will think Salvation not thereby overthrown This is but to shew your fallacy from a corrupt accident and indeed but of a part of the Church and a small part Now to your proof of the Major Resp. ad Major The present matter of the Church was not visible in the last Generation for we were not then born but the same form of the Church was then existent in a visible Matter and their Profession was visible or audible though their faith it self was invisible I will do more then you shall do in maintaining the constant visibility of the Chruch Ad minorem 1. If you mean that no Congregation hath been alwaies visible but that Universal Church whose lesser corrupt part acknowledges the Popes Soveraignty I grant it For besides the whole containing all Christians as the parts there can be no other If you mean save that part which acknowledgeth you contradict your self because a part implyeth other parts If you mean save that Universal Church all whose members or the most acknowledge it there is no such subject existent 2. I distinguish of Visibility It s one thing to be a visible Church that is visible in its essentials and another thing to be visible quoad hoc as to some separable accident The Universal Church was ever visible because their Profession of Christianity was so and the persons professing But the acknowledgement of the Vice-christ was not alwaies visible no not in any part much less in the whole And if it had it was but a separable accident if your disease be not incurable that was visible and therefore 1. It was not necessary to Salvation nor a proper mark of the Church 2. Nor can it be so for the time to come I need to say no more to your conclusion Your Argument is no better then this whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath been alwaies visible since the time of Christ But no Congregation of Christians hath been so visible save only that which condemneth the Greeks which hath a Colledge of Cardinals to choose the Popes which denieth the cup to the laity which forbiddeth the reading of Scripture in a known tongue without license c. Therefore whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath all these 1. In a corrupt part it hath 2. But it had not alwaies 3. And may be cured hereafter To your proof of the Major 1. I grant your Major 2. Ad minorem 1. Either you mean Universal Pastors each one or someone having charge and Government of the whole Church or you mean unfixed Pastors having an indefinite charge of Preaching and Guiding when they come and have particular calls and opportunities or you mean the fixed Pastors of particular Churches In the first sense your Minor is false the Catholike Church was never so united to any Universal Head but Christ no one of the Apostles governed the rest the whole Church much less any since their time In the second sense I grant that the Church hath ever had Pastors since the Ascension In the third sense I grant that some parts or other of the Catholike Church have ever had fixed Pastors of Congregations since the first settling of such Pastors But any one particular Congregation may cease to have such Pastors and may cease it self and Rome hath been long without any true Pastors and therefore was then no such visible Church 2. If by Congregation you mean not the Universal Church but a part or if you mean it of all the parts of the Universal Church I deny your Minor Communities of Christians and particular persons have been and may be without any Pastors to whom they are united or subject The Indians that died in the faith while Frumentius and Edesius were there preaching before they had any Pastor were yet Christians and saved If a Lay-man Convert one or a thousand and you will say that he may baptize them and they die before they can have a Pastor or ever hear of any to whom they owe subjection they are nevertheless saved as members of the Church And if all the Pastors in a Nation were murdered or banished the people would not cease to be Christians and members of the Church Much less if the Pope were dead or deposed or a vacancy befell his seat would all the Catholike Church be annihilated or cease To your Confirmation of the Major that a visible Church is nothing but a Visible Pastor and people united I answer 1. It s true of the universal Church as united in Christ the great Pastor but not as united in a Vice-Christ or humane head 2. It is true of a particular Political or organized Church as united to their proper Pastors 3. But it is not true of every Community of Christians who are a part of the Universal Church A company converted to Christ
wits in and whence they might gather more matter of dispute to puzzle the weak And therefore Tertullian adviseth the ordinary Christians of his time instead of long puzzling disputes with them out of Scripture to hold them to the Churches prescription of the simple doctrine of the Creed But now come in the Papists and 3. will neither be content with Creed nor Scripture but must have a Church or faith partly made up of supplemental Traditions of more then is in all the Scripture and so run further from Tertullian and the ancient simplicity then these Hereticks and yet are not ashamed to glory in this Book of Tertullian as for them Of the Fathers judgement of the Scripture sufficiency see the third part of my safe Religion where I have produced Testimonies enough to prove the Antiquity of the Protestants Religion and the Novelty of Popery But nothing can be so plain and full which pre-engaged men dare not deny Let me instance but in one or two passages of Augustine so plain as might put an end to the whole Controversie Aug. de Doctr. Christian. lib. 2. c. 9. In his omnibus libris timentes Deum pietate mansueti quaerunt voluntatem Dei. Cujus operis laboris prima observatio est ut diximus nosse istos libros si nondum ad intellectum legendo tamen vel mandare memoriae He was not against the Vulgars reading Scripture vel omnino incognitos non habere Deinde illa quae in eis aperte pofita sunt vel praecepta vivendi vel regulae credendi solertiùs diligentiúsque investiganda sunt Quae tanto quisque plura invenit quanto est intelligentia capacior In iis enim quae apertè in Scriptura posita sunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi N. B. spem scilicet atque charitatem de quibus libro superiore tractavimus Tum vero facta quadam familiaritate cum ipsa lingua divinarum scripturarum in ea quae obscura sunt aperienda discutienda pergendum est ut ad obscuriores locutiones illustrandas de manifestationibus sumantur exempla quaedam certarum sententiarum testimonia dubitationem de incertis auferant You see here that the Scripture as sufficient to faith and manners to be read by all that fear God and can read and the harder places to be expounded by the plainer was the ancient Rule of faith and Religion And this is the Religion of Protestants Aug. lib. 3. c. 6. contra lit Petiliani pag. 127. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicam Nos nequaquam comparandi â—i qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit si Angelus de coelo vobis annunciaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis Evangelicis accepistis Anathema sit I must needs English this short passage to the utter confusion of Popery And therefore whether it be of Christ or whether it be of the Church or whether it be of any other matter that pertaineth to our Faith or Life I will not say if we as being not worthy to be compared with him that said Though we but I will say plainly what he added following If an Angel from heaven shall declare to you any thing besides that which you have received in the Legall and Evangelicall Scriptures let him be Anathema or accursed Was not the Church then purely Protestant in their Religion The Minor needs no proof but our own Profession My profession is the best evidence of my own Religion to another And I profess this to be my Religion which is contained in the holy Scripture as the Test or Law or Rule And let no man contradict me that knoweth not my Religion better then I do The Articles of the Church of England profess this also to be the Religion of the Composers And the Protestants commonly uno ore do profess it It is the great difference between us and the Papists The whole Universal Law of God that we know of and own is contained in Nature and Scripture conjunct But the Papists take somewhat else to be another part We allow by-Laws about mutable undetermined things as aforesaid to Governours But we know no Universal Law of faith and holiness but Nature and Scripture This is our Religion And this Religion contained in Nature and Scriptures hath been still received Obj. We confess Scripture is sufficient to them that have no further light All that is necessary to the salvation of all is in that perspicuously as Costerus Bellarmine and others say but more is necessary to salvation to some Ans. 1. Then at least it containeth all the Essentialls of Christianity which sufficeth to our present end 2. And what maketh more Necessary to me or others here in England if it be not necessary to all Is it because that more is Revealed to us But how and by whom and with what Evidence We are willing to see it and can see no such thing But if this be it if I may speak so plainly without offence it seems it concerneth us to keep out Friars and Jesuites from the Land as much if we knew how as to keep out the Devil For they tell us 1. That we must believe the Popes Soveraignty against the Tradition and judgement of most of the Catholick Church 2. And we must believe our selves to be void of Charity because no Papists contrary to our internall sense and knowledge 3. And we must believe that bread is not bread and wine is not wine contrary to the common senses of all sound men and if we will not thus renounce the Churches Vote Tradition our Certain knowledge Reason and all our Senses we must be damned where as before this doctrine was brought us we might have been saved as having in the Scriptures all things necessary to the salvation of all But the Papists must needs have us shew them where our Church was and name the persons Answ. 1. It were not the Catholike Church if it were confined to any place that is but a part of the Christian territories 2. Nor were it the Catholike Church if we could name half or a considerable part of the members As Augustin oft tells the Donatists it is the Church which begun at Ierusalem and thence is spread throughout the world Part of it may be in one Nation one year which may forfeit and lose it before the next God hath not tyed it to any place 3. To tell you where the Catholike Church hath been in every age and who were the Members or the Leaders requireth much knowledge in History and Cosmography which God hath not made necessary to salvation 4. There are no known Histories that deliver us the Catalogues of the Christians in every age of the world Had any been so foolish as to write them they would have been too chargeable to keep and too
not at this day abhor the reading of the Office So that here is all invented new by Gregory which was hardly received in Spain and yet that changed since Arg. 9. If the Generality of Christians in the first ages and many if not most in the later ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists faith â—hen their faith hath had no successive Visible Church professing it in all ages but the Christians that are against it have been Visible But the Antecedent is true as I prove in some instances 1. It is an Article of their faith determined in a General Council at Laterane and Florence that the Pope is above a Council But that this hath not been successively received the Council of Basil and Constance witness making it a new Heresie 2. It is an Article of their faith that a Generall Council is above the Pope for it is so determined at Basil and Constance But that this hath had no successive duration the Council of Laterane and Florence witness 3. It is an Article of their faith that the Pope may depose Princes for denying Transubstantiation and such like Heresies and also such as will not exterminate such Hereticks from their dominions and may give their dominions to others and discharge their Subjects from their oaths and fidelity For it is determined so in a Council at Laterane But this hath not been so from the beginning Not when the 13. Chapter to the Romans was written Not till the dayes of Constantine Not till the dayes of Gregory that spake in contrary language to Princes And Goldastus his three Volumes of Antiquities shew you that there hath been many Churches still against it 4. It is an Article of their faith that the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a Change made of the whole substance of Bread into the body and of the whole substance of Wine into the blood which they call Transubstantiation So the Council of Trent But the Catholick Church hath been of a contrary judgement from age to age as among many others Edm. Albertinus de Eucharist hath plainly evinced though a quarreller hath denyed it and little more And it s proved in that successively they judged sense and Reason by it a competent discerner of Bread and Wine 5. It is now de fide that the true Sacrament is rightly taken under one kind without the cup as the Councils of Constance and Trent shew But the Catholick Church hath practised and the Apostles and the Church taught otherwise as the Council of Constance and their Writers ordinarily confess 6. It is an Article of their faith as appears in the Trent Oath that we must never take and interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers But the Catholick Church before these Fathers could not be of that mind and the Fathers themselves are of a contrary mind and so are many learned Papists 7. It is an Article of their faith that there is a Purgatory and that the souls there detained are holpen by the suffrages of the faithful But the latter was strange to all the old Catholick Church as Bishop Vsher and others have proved and the very being of Purgatory was but a new doubtfull indifferent opinion of some very few men about Augustines time 8. It is now an Article of their faith that the holy Catholick Church of Rome is the mother and mistris of all Churches But I have shewed here and elsewhere that the Catholick Church judged otherwise and so doth for the most part to this day 9. It is now an Article of their faith that their Traditions are to be received with equall pious affection and reverence as the holy Scripture But the Catholick Church did never so believe 10. The Council of Basil made it de fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Originall sin But the Catholick Church never judged so 11. It s determined by a Council now that the people may not read the Scripture in a known tongue without the Popes License But the Catholick Church never so thought as I have proved Disp. 3. of the safe Religion 12. The Books of Maccabees and others are now taken into the Canon of faith which the Catholick Church received not as such as Dr. Cosin and Dr. Reignolds have fully proved To this I might add the Novelty of their Worship and Discipline but it would be too tedious and I have said enough of these in other writings See Dr. Challoner pag. 88 89. In 16. points Dr. Challoner proveth your Novelty from your Confessions Indeed his Book de Eccles. Cath. though small is a full answer to your main Question Arg. 10. If Multitudes yea the far greatest part of Christians in all ages have been ignorant of Popery but not of Christianity then hath there been a succession of Visible Professors of Christianity that were no Papists but the antecedent is true therefore so is the consequent In this age it is an apparent thing that the far greatest part are ignorant of formal Popery 1. They confess themselves that the common people and most of the nobility of Habassia Armenia Greece Russia and most other Eastern Churches that are not Papists are ignorant of the Controversie 2. They use to tell us here among Protestants that there is not one of many that know what a Papist is 3. We know that of those that go under the name of Papists there is not one of a multitude knoweth We hear it from the mouths of those we speak with I have not met with one of ten of the poorer sort of them even here among us that knoweth what a Papist or Popery is but they are taught to follow their Priests and to say that theirs is the true Church and old Religion and to use their Ceremonious worship and to forbear coming to our Churches c. and this is their Religion And in Ireland they are yet far more ignorant And it s well known to be so in other parts Their Priests they know and the Pope they hear of as some person of eminent Power in the Church But whether he be the Universal Vicar of Christ and be over all others as well as them whether this be of Gods institution or by the grant of Emperours or Councils c. they know not And no wonder when the Papists think that the Council of Chalcedon spoke falsly of the humane Originall of the Primacy in the Imperiall territories And when the Councils of Basil and Constance knew not whether Pope or Council was the Head And that the people were as ignorant and much more in former ages they testifie themselves And before Gregories dayes they must needs be ignorant of that which was not then risen in the world Yea Dr. Field hath largely proved Append lib. 3. that even the many particular points in which the Papists now differ
15. and to Civil Government and Peace which might all easily be fully proved though here but touched I say whether such a Religion should be embraced and advanced with such diligence and violence and mens souls laid upon it is the controversie before us And whether is should be tolerated even the propagation of it to the damnation of the peoples souls is now the Question which the juggling Papists have set a foot among those that have made themselves our Rulers and there are found men among us that call themselves Protestants and godly that plead for the said Toleration and consequently for the delivering up of these Nations to Popery if not to Spanish or other forreign Powers which if they effect and after their contrary Professions prove such Traitors to Christ his Gospel and their posterity as they leave the Land of their Nativity in misery they shall leave their stinking names for a reproach and curse to future Generations and on such Pillars shall be written This pride self-seeking uncharitableness and schism hath done This was written and printed under the late Usurpers Postscript Reader THough the Papists have seemed to be the most discountenanced party under the late Usurpers and to have no interest or power yet I have still found that those sped worst from men that were most against them and that I never wrote any book against them but it brought a sharper storm upon me then any thing that I wrote against any other Sect that was more visibly in power And yet it was not openly professed to be for my opposition to Popery but on some other account and though the fountain by the taste of the waters might be known yet it self and secret conducts were all underground and undiscernable The Jesuits that are the spring of these and greater things then these are latent and their motion is not seen while we see the motions which are caused by their secret force So that by this means its only those few inquisitive discerning persons that can see a cause in its effect that find them out and those few are unable to make full proof even of the things they know and thereby are prohibited from appearing openly in the cause lest coming short in legal proof they leave the guilty triumphing over the innocent as calumniators For the last book that I wrote against them My Key for Catholikes the Parliament-house it self and all the land did ring of my accusations and the menaces were so high that my intended ruine was the common talk And I know their indignation is not abated My crime is that their zeal to proselyte me hath acquainted me with some of their secrets and let me know what the Jesuits are doing and how great a party that are masked under the name of Seekers Familists c. they have in the land I have therefore Reader this double request to thee First arm thy self diligently against Popery if thou would'st preserve thy Religion and thy soul. Whatever Sects assault thee openly suspect and avoid the disease that is endeavouring with greatest advantages to be Epidemical To this end be well studied in the writings that have opened their vanity and shame I hope what I have written on that subject will not be useless to them that are not at leisure to read the larger volumes Read Dr. Challoners Credo sanctam Ecclesiaâ— Catholicam Peter Moulins Answer to Cottons Questions And for larger Volumes Vsher Chillingworth Field Whittakers especially de Pontif. Roman may be numbered with the most solid judicious and useful And Dr. Mouline of the Novelty of Popery now in the press with River and Chamier to add no more And if ever thou fall in company with Seekers or Familists that are questioning all things and endeavouring to disparage the holy Scriptures and the Ministry and Church and Ordinances though but in a questioning way look then to thy Religion and suspect a Papist Secondly because experience hath taught me to expect that my renewed assault of Popery should raise some storm and renew my dangers though I know not which way it will come and expect it should be upon pretence of something that is no kin to the real cause let him that hath been so exceedingly beholden to the servants of Christ for prayers have thy prayers in particular for this that he may be satisfied in Gods approbation and count it a small matter to be censured by man or to suffer those soft and harmless stroaks that the impotent arm of flesh can inflict and may live and dye in the Army of believers described Heb. 11 and 12. and be so far preserved from the contrivances of malice as is needful to his appointed work in which it is the top of his ambition to be found A faithful though unworthy servant of Christ for his Church Rich. Baxter Sâ—p 3. 1660. The CONTENTS The first Part. Mr. Johnsons Argument prosecuted to pag. 6 My Answer 7 to 26 Mr. Johnsons second Paper 27 His attempt to prove the succession of the Roman Soveraignty 49 to the end My letter to the sender of his 68 My Reply to the second Paper 77 On which of us the Proof is incumbent 87 Of the Eastern and Southern Churches 94 95 c. Whether we are one Church with them of Rome 107 c. Of our separation 107 Whether the Armenians Ethiopians Syrians c. are excluded as Hereticks 113 The instance of an Appeal of John of Antioch refuted 127 The instance of Flavianus Appeal refuted 129 Of Leo's pretended restoring Theodoret upon Appeal 132 Of Cyprians desire that Stephen would depose Martian Bishop of Arles 133 A pretended Decree of the Council of Sardis examined 135 Basils words Epist. 74. examined 138 Chrysostoms words to Innocent 140 A pretended Proof from the Council of Ephesus confuted 141 Of the addresses to Pope Julius by Athanasius and the Arrians 143 Chamiers words hereabout 146 Of Chrysostoms case 147 Of Theodosius and the Concil Ephes. 152 Of the Council of Calcedon 154 Of Pope Agapet deposing Anthymius of Constantinople 159 Of Gregories words 160 Of Cyril and Celestine against Nestorius 161 Of Juvenals words 163 Of Valentinians and Theodosius words 164 Of Vincentius Lirinensis words 169 Of Philip and Arcadius at Concil Ephesus 170 The nullity of all these pretended Proofs 174 Whether Papists give and Popes accept the Title of Vice-Christ Monarch c. 175 to 188 Of the Contest of Councils for the Rule 188 Mr. Johnsons work to which his cause engageth him 191 The Contents of the second Part. Qu. WHether the Church of which the Protestants are members have been visible ever since the daies of Christ on earth Aff. The Church what 197 Protestants what 198 Of Membership and Visibility 201 The first Argument to prove the successive Visibility 204 The second Argument 209 Papists Testimonies for the sufficiency of Scripture as the Rule 219 Some of the Fathers of the same 221 Where was our Church 225 The true Catholike
only to conclude absolutely as you here do that all have been against us for many hundred years In your Num. 5. You name Ethiopia and India as having been without the limits of the Roman Empire whom you deny to have acknowledged any supremacy of power and authority above all other Bishops You might have done well to have cited at least one antient Author for this Assertion Were those primitive Christians of another kind of Church-order and Government then were those under the Roman Empire When the Roman Emperors were yet Heathens had not the Bishop of Rome the Supremacy over all other Bishops through the whole Church and did those Heathen Emperors give it him How came St. Cyprian in time of the Heathen Empire to request Stephen the Pope to punish and depose the Bishop of Arles as we shall see hereafter Had he that authority think you from an Heathen Emperour See now how little your Allegations are to the purpose where you nominate any determinate Congregations to satisfie my demand I had no reason to demand of you different congregations of all sorts and Sects opposing the Supremacy to have been shewn visible in all ages I was not so ignorant as not to know that the Nicolaitans Valentinians Gnosticks Manichees Montanists Arians Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Pelagians Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wicleffists Hussits Lutherans Calvinists c. each following others had some kind of visibility divided and distracted each to his own respective age from our time to the Apostles in joyning their heads and hands together against the Popes Supremacy But because these could not be called one successive Congregation of Christians being all together by the ears amongst themselves I should not have thought it a demand beseeming a Scholar to have required such a visibility as this Seeing therefore all you determinately nominate are as much different as these pardon me if I take it not for any satisfaction at all to my demand or acquittance of your obligation Bring me a visible succession of any one Congregation of Christians of the same belief profession and communion for the designed time opposing that Supremacy and you will have satisfied but till that be done I leave it to any equal judgement whether my demand be satisfied or no. You answer to this That all those who are nominated by you are parts of the Catholike Church and so one Congregation But Sir give me leave to tell you that in your principles you put both the Church of Rome and your selves to be parts of the Catholike Church and yet sure you account them not one Congregation of Christians seeing by separation one from another they are made two or if you account them one why did you separate your selves and still remain separate from communion with the Roman Church why possessed you your selves of the Bishopricks and Cures of your own Prelates and Pastors they yet living in Queen Elizabeths time and drew both your selves and their other subjects from all subjection to them and communion with them Is this disunion think you fit to make one and the same Congregation of you and them is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make one Congregation of Common-wealths men Though therefore you do account them all parts of the Catholike Church yet you cannot make them in your principles one Congregation of Christians Secondly your position is not true the particulars named by you neither are nor can be parts of the Catholike Church unless you make Arians and Pelagians and Donatists parts of the Catholike Church which were either to deny them to be Hereticks and Schismaticks or to affirm that Hereticks and Schismaticks separating themselves from the communion of the Catholike Church notwithstanding that separation do continue parts of the Catholike Church For who knows not that the Ethiopians to this day are Eutychian Hereticks And a great part of those Greeks and Armenians who deny the Popes Supremacy are infected with the Heresie of Nestorius and all of them profess generally all those points of faith with us against you wherein you differ from us and deny to communicate with you or to esteem you other then Hereticks and Schismaticks unless you both agree with them in those differences of faith and subject your selves to the obedience of the Patriarch of Constantinople as to the chief Head and Governour of all Christian Churches next under Christ and consequently as much a vice-Christ in your account as the Pope can be conceived to be See if you please Hieremias Patriarch of Constantinople his Answer to the Lutherans especially in the beginning and end of the book Acta Theologorum Wittebergensium c. and Sir Edwyn Sands of this subject in his Survey p. 232 233 242 c. Either therefore you must make the Eutychians and Nestorians no Hereticks and so contradict the Oecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon which condemned them as such and the consent of all Orthodox Christians who ever since esteemed them no others or you must make condemned Hereticks parts of the Catholick Church against all antiquity and Christianity And for those Greeks neer Constantinople who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost against both us and you they must be thought to maintain manifest Heresie it being a point in a fundamental matter of faith the Trinity and the difference betwixt those Greeks and the Western Church now for many hundred of years and in many General Councils esteemed and defined to be real and great yea so great that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone and ever esteemed the Bishop of Rome and his party to have fallen from the true faith and lost his ancient authority by that sole pretended error and the Latins alwaies esteemed the Greeks to be in a damnable error in maintaining the contrary to the doctrine of the Western or Roman Church in that particular And yet sure they understood what they held and how far they differed one from another much better then some Novel writers of yours who prest by force of Argument have no other way left them to maintain a perpetual visibility then by extenuating that difference of Procession betwixt the Greek and Latin Church which so many ages before Protestancy sprung up was esteemed a main fundamental error by both parts caused the Greeks to abandon all subjection and Communion to the Bishops of Rome made them so divided the one from the other that they held each other Hereticks Schismaticks and desertors of the true faith as they continue still to do to this day and yet you will have them both to be parts of the Catholike Church But when you have made the best you can of these Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants whom you first name you neither have deduced nor can deduce
issue which hath been so calmly and soberly prosecuted I am an enemy to passion and as I have hitherto found you sweet and gentle in your proceedings towards me so shall you alwaies find me Worthy Sir Your friend to serve you William Johnson May 2. 1659. Sir Be pleased to return your Answer Papers or Letters which you intend for me to the same place to which you directed your former by which means I shall be secure to receive them at my house which is fourscore miles from London To Mr. T. L. who called me to this work Sir THough I am a stranger to you I thought meet to take notice of the Letters which you sent your friend here T. H. It seems you urge hard for a Reply and intimate somewhat of triumph in my delay you speak as an incompetent Judge God is the Master of my time and work and him I must serve and not neglect his greater work for such trivial objections as your friend hath sent me which are answered over and over by many so long ago Had you read Blondel Molineus de novitate Papismi Whitaker Sibrandus Lubbertus Chamier Abbots Crakenthorp Spalatensis or one of many that have confuted them you would sure call for no more Or if in English you had read Dr. Field Dr. White yea or but Sir Humphery Lind to pass by multitudes you might have seen their vanity Yea plainly read impartially my two books against Popery and be a Papist if you can But it seems you take it for a poor answer to be referred to books Do not fear it But yet let me tell you that my hand is not more legible then my printed books and if I had sent you this in print would that have made it a poor answer Or rather is not this a poor exception and shews that it is not truth that is look after for truth may be printed as well as written If you be deceived by the men of the Papal way let me yet intreat you but to read over those two books The safe Religion and the Key for Catholikes If your soul be not worth so much labour take your course I did my duty But I must say that it is doleful case that professors are so ungrounded that such vanities should carry them away from Catholike verity and unity to a faction that usurps the name of Catholikes To be free with you I think it is that pride and levity that brings them first to separation from our Churches into Sects and the guilt which they there incur that prepareth professors to be so far forsaken of God as to be given up to believe a lie and to turn Papists O dreadful case that one Bishop cannot swell in pride but men must make a Religion of his pride yea and make a Catholike Church of it yea and plead for it and make the sin their own yea condemn all Christians that list not themselves under this Prince of pride He is culpably if not wilfully blind that hath read Scripture and Church history and knoweth not that the Pope for three hundred years after Christ was not the creature that now he is nor had for most of that time any more Government over other Bishops then I have over neighbour Pastors and after that time he was no more an universal Head or Governour or Vicar of Christ then the Archbishop of Canterbury was having indeed a far larger Diocess then he but never was more then the swelled Primate of one National Imperial Church When Synods began to be gathered out of a Principality the Emperours desiring that means of unity within their Empire the pride of the Prelates set them presently a striving for superiority who should sit highest and write his name first and have the largest Diocess c And now men make a Religion of the fruits of this abominable pride What are all their disputings for and all this stir that they make in the world but to set up one man over all the earth and that to do a spirituall work which consisteth not with force but is managed on conscience One wretched man must govern the Antipodes on the other side of the earth that is indeed uncapable of truly and justly Governing the City of Rome it self Popes that their own Councils have condemned for ravishing maids and wives at their doors for Murders Simony Drunkenness Heresie denying the Resurrection and the life to come that is being no Christians these forsooth must be the universal Governours or we are all undone and we are damned if we believe it not O how dreadfull are the effects of sin and how great a judgement is a blinded mind This comes of falling into Sects and parties which leads men into the gulf of the most odious Schism even Popery in the world But if you are engaged in this party it s two to one but you are presently made partial and will not so much as read what is against them or will believe them if they do but tell you that we write lies when they are things done in the open sun and which they cannot confute nor dare attempt leâ—t they manifest their shame Take from them their Clergies vast Dominions Principalities Lands and Lordships Riches and worldly Honours with which they so much abound and then try how many will plead for the Pope then they 'l say If Baâ—l be a God let him plead for himself But I confess I have little hopes of turning any of them though I could shew it them written by an Angel from heaven that Popery is a deceit for the Scripture that 's above Angelical authority declareth it and by making it a nose of wax they take it as if it were not sense nor intelligible without the Popes interpretation which in difficult cases he dare not give They cry up the Church and when we would have them stand to the Church they shamefully turn their backs and when two or three parts of the Churches through the world are against the Papal Soveraignty they refuse them as Hereticks or Schismaticks They cry up Tradition and when we offer them in the main point to be tried by it they disclaim the Tradition of two or three parts of the universal Church as being all Hereticks And may not any Sect do so too as honestly as they yea among the ignorant that know not Chaffe from Corn â—hey have some of them the faces to perswade them that their Church is the greater half of the Christian world when they know they speak notoriously falsly or else they are unworthy to speak of such things that they understand not But to what purpose should any words be used with men that have taught so great a part of the world not to believe their eyes and other senses Can any writing make any matter plainer to you then that Bread is Bread and Wine is Wine when you see them and tast and eat and drink them And yet their general Councils approved by the
cannot force our own understandings to believe all such things that you believe and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our consciences and saying We believe what our senses contradict and without committing that which our consciences tell us are most heynous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as you say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon these errours and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murdered or taken for unchaâ—â—â—â—ble will you say to so many poor souls that are ready to enter into another world Either sin against your consciences and so damn your souls or else let us burn and murder you or else you do not love us you are uncharitable if you deny us leave to kill you and you separate from the Communion of the Church We appeal from the Pope and all unreasonable men to the great God of heaven and earth to judge righteously between you and us concerning this dealing As for possessing our selves of your Bishopricks and Cures if any particular person had personal injury in the change being cast out without cause they must answer for it that did it and not I though I never heard any thing to make me believe it But must the Prince and people let alone delinquent Pastors for fear of being blamed for taking their Bishopricks Ministers of the same Religion with us may be cast out for their crimes Princes have power over Pastors as well as David Solomon and other Kings of Israel had Guil. Barklay and some few of your own knew this The Popes treasonable exemption of the Clergy from their Soveraigns judgement will not warrant those Princes before God that neglect to punish offeâ—â—ing Pastors And I beseech you tell us â—hen our consciences after the use of all means that we can use to be informed cannot renounce all our sences nor our reason nor the judgement of the most of the Church or of antiquity or the Word of God and yet we must do so or be no members of your Church what wrong is it to you if we choose us Pastors of our own in the order that God hath appointed Had not the people in all former ages the choice of their Pastors we and our late forefathers here were never under your oversight but we know not why we may not now choose our Pastors as well as formerly We do it not by tumults we kill not men and tread not in their blood while we choose our Pastors as Pope Damasus was chosen The tythes and other temporal maintenance we take from none but the Magistrate disposeth of it as he seeth meet for the Churches good And the maintenance is for the cure or work and therefore they that are justly cast out of the cure are justly deprived of the maintenance And surely when they are dead none of you can with any shew of reason stand up and say These Bishopricks are yours or these Parsonages yourâ—â— It is the Incumbent personally that only â—an claim title saving the supereminent title of Christ to whom they are devoted But the successive Popes cannot have title to all the tithes and Temples in the world nor any of his Clergy that never were called to the charges If this be disunion it is you that are the Separatists and cause of all If you will needs tell all the Christian world that except they will be ruled by the Pope of Rome and be burned if they believe not as he bids them in despight of all their senses he will call them Separatists Schismaticks and say they disunite and are uncharitable again we appeal to God and all wise men that are impartial whether it be he or we that is the divider You ask me Is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and Government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make a Congregation of Commonwealths men Answ. Yes it is But as all the world is one Kingdom under God the universal King but yet hath no universal Vice-King but every Commonwealth only hath its own Soveraign even so all the Christian world is one Church under Christ the universal King of the Church but haâ—â— not one Vice-Christ but every Church hath its own Pastors as every School hath its own Schoolmaster But all the anger is because we are loth to be ruled by a cruel usurper therefore we are uncharitable Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Catholike Church unless Arrians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church And if they were yet it is not de fide with you as not determined by the Pope If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If it be not then how can you be sure its true and so impose it on me that they are no parts 2. Arrians are no Christians as denying that which is essential to Christ and so to Christianity Pelagianism is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true nature of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuits Pelagianize or Semipelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were â—chismaticks because they divided in the Catholike Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It s nothing to our case That the Aethiopians are Eutychian Hereticks I will see better proved before I will believe it Rosses words I so little regard that I will not so much as open his book to see whether he say so or not I know that Heresie is a personal crime and cannot be charged on Nations unless you have evidence that the Nations consent to it which here you have none Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity these are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser errors consistent with Christianity and these may be in the Church The Abassines and all the rest have not been yet tryed and convicted before any competent Judge and slanderers we regard not 2. Many of your own writers acquit them of Heresie and say the
unacquainted with the opinions of your own Divines and upon this mistake so confidently feign that it is our Novel writers forced to it by your arguments that have been so charitable to these Churches against antiquity that knew better If the Greeks and Latins tear the Church of Christ by their Condemnations of each other they may both be schismatical as guilty of making divisions in the Church though not as dividing from the Church And if they pretend the denyal of the Christian faith against each other as the cause you shall not draw us into the guilt of the uncharitableness by telling us that they know better then we If wise men fall out and fight I will not justifie either side because they are wise and therefore likelier then I to know the cause But what need we more to open your strange mistake and unjust dealing then the authority of your so much approved Council of Florence that received both Greeks and Armenians and the very words of the Popes Bull of the union which declare that the Greeks and Latins were found to mean Orthodoxly both the words are these Convenientes Latini Graeci in hac sacrosancta Oecumenica synodo magno studio invicem usi sunt ut inter alia articulus etiam ille de Divina Spiritus Sancti processione summa cum diligentia assidua inquisitione discuteretur Prolatis vero testimoniis ex Divinis Scripturis plurimisque authoritatibus sanctorum doctorum orientalium occidentelium aliquibus quidem ex Patre Filio quibusdam vero ex Patre per Filium procedere dicentibus Spiritū Sanctum ad eandem intelligentiam aspicientibus omnibus sub diversis vocabulis Graeci quidem asseruerunt quod id quod dicunt Spiritum Sanctum ex Patre procedere non hac mente proferrent ut excludant Filiū sed quia eis videbatur ut aiunt Latinos asserere spiritum Sanctum ex Patre Filioque procedere tanquam ex duobus principiis duabus Spirationibus ideo abstinuerunt à dicendo quod Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre procedat Filio Latini vero affirmaverunt non se hac mente dicere Spiritum Sanctum ex Filioque procedere ut excludant Patrem quin sit fons ac principium totius Deitatis Filii scilicet Spiritus Sancti aut quod id quod Spiritus Sanctu procedat ex Filio Filius à Patre non habeat sive quod duo ponant esse principia seu duas spirationes sed ut unum tantum asserunt esse principium unicamque spirationem Spiritus Sancti prout hactenus asseruerunt cum ex his omnibus unus idem eliciatur veritatis sensus tandem c. I pray you now tell it to no more that it is same Novel writers of ours prest by force of argument that have been the authors of this extenuation May heart even trembleth to think that there should be a thing called Religion among you that can so far extinguish both Charity and Humanity as to cause you to pass so direful a doom without authority or tryal on so great a part of the Christian world for such a word as this about so exceeding high a mysterie when your Pope and Council have pronounced a union of meanings And what mean you in your Margin to refer me to Nilus as if he asserted That the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone Verily Sir in the high matters of God this dealing is scarce fair pardon this plainness consider of it your self The substance of Nilus book is about the Primacy of the Pope The very contents prefixed to the first book are these Oratio demonstrans non aliam c. An Oration demonstrating that there is no other cause of the dissension between the Latin and Greek Churches then that the Pope refuseth to defer the cognisance and iudgement of that which is controverted to a general Council but he will sit the sole Master and Iudge of the Controversie and will have the rest as Disciples to be hearers of or obey his word which is a thing aliene from the Laws and actions of the Apostles and Fathers And he begins his Book after a few words thus Causa itaque hujus dissidii c. The cause therefore of this difference as I judge is not the sublimity of the point exceeding mans capacity For other matters that have divers times troubled the Church have been of the same kind This therefore is not the cause of the dissention much less is it the speech of the Scripture it self which as being concise doth pronounce nothing openly of that which is controverted For to accuse the Scripture is as much as to accuse God himself But God is without all fault But who the fault is in any one may easily tell that is well in his wits He next shews that it is not for want of learned men on both sides nor is it because the Greeks do claim the Primacy and then concludeth it as before He maintaineth that your Pope succeedeth Peter only as a Bishop ordained by him as many other Bishops that originally were ordained by him in like manner do succeed him and that his Primacy is no Governing power nor given him by Peter but by Princes and Councils for order sale and this he proves at large and makes this the main difference Bellarmines answering his so many Arguments might have told you this if you had never read Nilus himself If you say that This point was the first cause I deny it but if it were true yet was it not the only or chief cause afterward The Munner of bringing in the filioque by Papal authority without a general Council was it that greatly offended the Greeks from the beginning But you say that when I have made the best of these Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants I cannot deduce them successively in all ages till Christ as a different Congregation of Christians from that which holds the Popes supremacy which was your proposition Reply I have oft told you we own no universal informing Head but Christ. In respect to him I have proved to you that is not my interest or design to prove us or them a different Congregation from you as you are Christians Nor shall you tempt me to be so uncharitable as to damn or unchristen all Papists as far as you do others incomparably safer and better then your selves But as you are Papal and set up a new informing head I have proved that you differ from all the antient Churches but yet that my cause requireth me not to make this proof but to call you to prove your own universal succession You add your Reason because these beforenamed were at first involved in your Congregation and then fell off as dead branches Reply This is but an untruth in a most publick matter of fact All the truth is this 1. Those Indians Ethiopians Persians c. without the Empire never fell
the help of Iulius and therefore no wonder if they desired this safety to their Churches 2. Note that this is a thing newly granted now by this Canon and not any ancient thing 3. Note that therefore it was of Humane Right and not of Divine 4. Note that yet this Canon was not received or practised in the Church but after this the contrary maintained by Councils and practised as I shall anon prove 5. That it is not any antecedent Governing Power that the Canon acknowledgeth in the Pope but in honour of the Memory of S. Peter as they say yet more for their present security they give this much to Rome it being the vulgar opinion that Peter had been there Bishop 6. That it is not a Power of judging alone that they give but of causing the re-examination of Causes by the Council and adding his assistants in the judgement and so to have the putting of another into the place forborn till it be done 7. And I hope still you will remember that at this Council were no Bishops without the Empire and that the Roman world was narrower then the Christian world and therefore if these Bishops in a part of the Empire had now given not a Ruling but a saving Power to the Pope so far as is there expressed this had been far from proving that he had a Ruling Power as the Vice-Christ over all the world and that by Divine right Blame me not to call on you to prove this consequence 8. There is as much for Appeals to Constantinople that never claimed a Vice-Christship as Iure divino 6. Your sixth instance out of Basils 74. Epistle I imagine you would have suppressed if ever you had read that Epistle and had thought that any others would be induced by your words to read it I have given you out of this and other Epistles of Basil a sufficient proof of his enmity to Popery in my Key cap. 26. pag. 170 171 172. and cap. 27. pag. 177. that very Epistle of Basils was written to the Western Bishops and not to the Bishop of Rome only nor so much as naming him The help that he desireth is either a Visit or perswasive Letters never mentioning the least Power that the Pope had more then other Bishops but only the interest of Credit that the Western Bishops had more then Basil and his Companions saith he For what we say is suspected by many as if for certain private contentions we would strike a fear and pusillanimity into their minds But for you the further you dwell from them so much the more credit you have with the common people to which this is added that the grace of God is a help to you to care for the oppressed And if many of you unanimously decree the same things it is manifest that the Multitude of you decreeing the same things will cause an undoubted reception of your opinion with all You see here upon what terms Liberius his Letters might bestead Eustathius He having received him into his own Communion and Eustathius being Orthodox in words no wonder that the Synod of Tiana receive him upon an Orthodox confession and their fellow-Bishops reception and Letters No doubt but the Letters of many another Bishop might have perswaded them to his reception though he had more advantages from Rome Is it not now a fair Argument that you offer Liberius sometime an Arrian Pope of Rome by his Letters prevailed with a Synod at Tyana to restore Eustathius an Arrian that dissembled an Orthodox confession What then Ergo the Pope of Rome is the Vice-Christ or was then the Governour of all the Christian world Soft and fair 1. Basil gives you other reasons of his interest 2. He never mentioneth his universall Government when he had the greatest need to be helped by it if he had known of such a thing 3. The Empire is not all the world If Basil knew the Roman Soveraignty I am certain he was a wilfull Rebel against it 7. Your seventh proof is from Chrysostome who you say expresly desireth Pope Innocent not to punish his adversaries if they do repent Chrys. Epist. 2. ad Innoc. Reply You much wrong your soul in taking your Religion thus on trust some Book hath told you this untruth and you believe it and its like will perswade others of it as you would do me There is no such word in the Epist. of Chrysostome to Innocent nor any thing like it 8. Your eighth proof is this The like is written to the Pope by the Council of Ephesus in the Case of Iohn of Antioch Concil Ephes. p. 2. Act. 5. Reply 1. The first Council at Ephesus which no doubt you mean is in Binnius enough to make a considerable Volume and divided into six Tomes and each of those into Chapters and not into Acts And if you expect that I should exactly read six Tomes in Folio before I can answer your severall sentences or shreds you will put me on a twelve-moneths work to answer a few sheets of Paper If you mean by p. 3. Tom. 2. and by Act. 5. Cap. 5. then I must tell you there is not a word of that you say nor like it Only there is reference to Celestines and Cyrils Epistles and Celestine in his Epistle recited Tom. 1. cap. 17. threatens Nestorius that if he repent not he will excommunicate him and they will have no more communion with him which others did as well as he but not a word of Iohn Bishop of Antioch there Nor can I find any such thing in the 4. Tome where Iohn's cause is handled Indeed the Notes of your Historian divide the Council into Sessions But in his fifth Session there is nothing of Iohn but of Nestorius And in the 4. Sess. Iohn and his Party excommunicate Cyril Memnon and theirs And it was the Council that suspended first and after excommunicated Iohn And it is the Emperour to whom he appeals Indeed your Annotator in Sess. 6. mentions some words of Iuvenals that he should at least have regarded the Roman Legates it being the custome that his Church be directed by that But I see no proof he brings of those words and it is known that Cyril of Alexandria did preside and subscribed before the Roman Legates even to the severall Letters of the Synod as you may see in Tom. 2. cap. 23. passim 2. But if your words were there to be found what are they to your purpose The Pope can punish the Bishop of Antioch But how Why by excommunicating him True if he deserve it that is by pronouncing him unfit for Christian Communion and requiring his flock and exhorting all others to avoid him And thus may another Bishop do and thus did Iohn by Cyril of Alexandria though he was himself of the inferiour Seat and thus hath the Bishop of Constantinople done by the Bishop of Rome and so may others 9. Your ninth proof is from the applications that the Arrians and Athanasius
appetit quo vocari nullus praesumpsit qui veraciter sanctus fuit That is And to bind up all in the girdle of speech the Saints before the Law the Saints under the Law the Saints under Grace all these making up the Body of Christ were placed among the Members of the Church yet never man would be called Universal Let your Holiness therefore consider how with your self you swell that desire to be called by that name by which no man hath presumed to be called that was truly Holy Well! if this be not as pâ—â—in as Protestants speak against Popery I will never hope to understand a Pope I only add that Gregory makes this usurpation of the name of an Universal Bishop a forerunner of Antichrist And that Pope Pelagius condemned it before him which Gratian puts into their Decrees or Canon Law And that he took the Churches authority to be greater then his own when he tells Iohn Sed quoad in mea correptione despicior restat ut Ecclesiam debeam adhibere Lib. 7. Ep. 30. Dixi nec mihi vos nec cuiquam alteri tale aliquid scribere debere ecce in praefatione epistolae quam ad meipsum qui prohibui direxistis sâ—perbae appellationis verbum Universalem me Papam dicentes imprimere curastis Quod peto dulcissima sanctitas vestra ultra non faciat quia vobis subtrahitur quod alteri plusquam ratio exigit praebetur See then whether it be not judged by him undue to himself as well as to others And what the weight of the matter seemed to him judge more by these words Ep. 83. l. 4. ad Arrian In isto scelesto vocabulo consentire nihil est aliud quam fidem perdere To consent in that wicked word is nothing else but to lose or destroy the faith That is apostasie And l. 6. c. 194. Mauric Aug. Ego fidenter dico quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat vel vocare desiderat in elatione sua Antichristum praecurrit quia superbiendo se caeteris praeponit nec dispari superbia ad errorem ducitur Arg. 7. The Papists themselves confess that multitudes of Christians if not most by far have been the opposers of the Pope or none of his subjects therefore by their Testimony there have been visible Churches of such Aeneas Sylvius after Pope Pius 2. saith small regard was had to the Church of Rome before the Council of Nice Bellarmine saith This is partly true by reason of the persecution of those ages and partly false Ans. But if true we prove the matter of fact and leave Bellarmine better to prove his Reason If it be false then their own Historians are not to be believed â—hough worthy to be Popes And then wâ—at historicall testimony will they believe Voluminously do their Historians mention the Opposition of the Greeks on one side and of the Emperours and Kings and Divines that were under the Popes Patriarchal power as Mich. Goldastus in abundance of Treatises hath manifested I gave before the testimony of Reynerius that the Churches planted by the Apostles were not under the Pope I shall once more recite the words of Melch. Canus Loc. Theol. lib. 6. cap. 7. fol. 201. Not only the Greeks but almost all N. B. the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have vehemently fought to destroy the Priviledge of the Church of Rome and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the greater Number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the One Pope of Rome By the Papists confession then most of the Churches and almost all the Bishops of the whole world and the Emperours their Armies have vehemently fought to abrogate the Popes power and destroy the Priviledges of Rome Reynerius his testimony concerning the Antiquity of the Waldenses as from Pope Sylvesters dayes if not the Apostles hath been oft cited Had they been but from Gregories dayes it had been enough when we have his own Testimony that no Bishop of Rome would own to that time that wicked prophane sacrilegious foolish blasphemous dividing name of Vniversal Patriarch or Bishop which who ever holds to destroys the faith Arg. 8. The next Argument should have been from the Historical Testimony of the Ancients that the Papal Soveraignty was then no part of the Churches faith nor owned by them But here to produce the Testimonies of all ages would be to write a Volume in Folio on this one Argument alone For how can the History of all Ages be so particularly delivered out of such a Multitude of Books but in a multitude of words And it is done already so fully that I provoke the Papists to answer the Catalogues and historicall Evidence given in if they can If you ask where I will now only tell you of 1. Blondell against Perron dâ— Primatu in Ecclesia in French that shews you the torrent of Antiquity against the Papal Soveraignty 2. Molinaeus in French de Novitate Papismi against the same Perron 3. Bishop Vsher de statu successione Ecclesiarum and his Answer to the â—esuites challenge 4. Dr. Field of the Church who lib. 5. answereth Bellarmines allegations from all sort of Antiquity which are their strength I pass by many others some of which I have named in the foresaid 3. Dispute of the safe Religion where also I have produced more of this evidence then they can answer At least much more then you have returned me in your last Paper for the contrary to which I desire your answer For it s in vain to write one thing so oft I shall only instance in the currant Testimony of their own Historians of the Beginning of their Universal Headship Saith Regino Chron. l. 1. An. 808. p. 13. Bonifacius obtinuit apud Phocam Principem ut sedes Romana Caput esset omnium Ecclesiarum quia Ecclesia Constantinâ—pâ—litana primum se omnium Ecclesiarum scribebat Hermannus Contractus An. M. 4550. p. 122. Hoc tempore Phocas Romanam Ecclesiam omnium Ecclesiâ—rum Caput esse constituit Nam Constantinop primam se esse scripsit So Marianus Scotus in Phoc. Bonifacius P. 67. impetravit á Phoca Caesare ut sedes Apostolica Romana Caput esset Ecclesiae quum antea Constantinopolis Primam omnium se scriberet The same hath Sigebertus Gemblac An. 607. p. 526. And so Compilat Chron. and many more Beneventus de Rambaldis Lib. Augustali saith p. 8. in Phoca Phocas occiâ—â—r Manritii qui Primus constituit Quod Ecclesia esset Caput omnium Ecclesiarum Cum prius Constantin supremum se nominaret Mark here the Primus Constituit So Beda P. Diaconus Anastasius Pomponius Laetus c. And of the Novelty of their worship saith Platina in Gregor 1. What should I say more of this holy man whose whole institution of the Church office specially the old one was invented and approved by him which Order I would we did follow then Learned men would
Council of Nice that many Princes were subjected to the Church of Rome by Ecclesiastical custom and no other right the Synod should do the greatest injury to the Bishop of Rome if it should attribute those things to him only from custom which were his due by Divine Right This Citation I take from Bishop Bromhall having not seen the Book my self The Popish Bishop of Calcedâ—n Survey cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is Saint Peters successour and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth but whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith An ingenuous Confession destroying Popery See Aubert Miraeus notitia Episcopat where in the antient Notit and Leunclavius record of Leo Philos. Impera There are none of the Abassine or other extramperial Nations under the old Patriarcks Cassander Epist. 37. D. Ximenio operum p. 1132. saith of that learned pious Bishop of Valentia Monlucius so highly commended by Thuanus and other learned men that he said Si sibi permittatur in his tribus capitibus viz. forma publicarum precum de ritibus Baptismi de formâ Eucharistiae sive Missae Christianam formam ad normam priscae Ecclesiae Institutam legi conâ—idere se quod ex quinquaginta mill quos habet in suâ Dioecesi à praesenti disciplina Ecclesiae diversos quaùraginta millia ad Ecclesiasticam uniâ—nâ—m sit reducturus That is If he had but leave in these three heads the form of publick Prayers of the rites of Baptism and the form of the Eucharist or the Mass to follow the Christian form Instituted according to the rule of the Antient Church he was confident that of fifty thousand that he had in his Diocess that differed from the present discipline of the Church he should reduce forty thousand to Ecclesiastical union By this testimony it is plain that the Church of Rome hath forsaken the antient Discipline and Worship of the Church by Innovation and that the Protestants desire the restitution of it and would be satisfied therewith but cannot obtain it at the Papists hands So Cassâ—nder himself Epist. 42 p. 1138. I would not despair of moderation if they that hold the Church possessions would remove some intolerable abuses and would restore at tolerable form of the Church according to the prescript of the Word of God and of the antient Church especially that which flourished for some ages after Constantine when liberty was restored which if they will not do and that betime there is danger they may in many places be cast out of their possessions Still you see Rome is the Innovator and it is Restitution of the antient Church-form that would have quieted the Protestans which could never be obtained So again more plainly Epist. 45. p. 1141. Whether Hereticks are in the Church When I came to London I enquired after Mr. Iohnson to know whether I might at all expect any Answer to the foregoing Papers or not And at last instead of an Answer I received only these ensuing lines PAg. 5. part 1. You say I reply first had not you despaired of making good your cause you should have gone by argumentation till you had forced me to contradict some common principle Now I have by Argumentation forced you to this if you will maintain what after you seem to assert in divers passages viz. That Hereticks are true parts of Christs Catholick Church for thus you write p. 11. Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity those are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser Errours consistent with Christianity And these may be in the Church And p. 12. you answer thus to your adversary Whereas you say it is against all antiquity and Christianity to admit condemned Hereticks into the Church I reply first I hate their condemnation rather then reverence it where you saying nothing against their admittance into the Church seem to grant it I therefore humbly entreate you to declare your opinion more fully in this question Whether any professed Hereticks properly so called are true parts of the universal visible Church of Christ so that they compose one universal Church with the other visible parts of it Iunii 6 to William Johnson The Answer ANsw. My words are plain and distinctly answer your question so that I know not what more is needful for the explication of my sense Unless you would call us back from the Thing to the meer Name by your properly so called you are answered already But I would speak as plainly as I can and if it be possible for me to be understood by you I shall do my part 1. It is supposed that you and I are not agreed What the Vniversal visible Church it self is while you take the Pope or any meer humane Head to be an essential part which is an assertion that with much abhorrence I deny You think each member of that Church must necessarily ad esse be a subject of the Pope and I think it enough that he be a subject of Christ and to his orderly and well-being that he hold local Communion with the parts within the reach of his capacity and be subject to the Pastors that are set over him maintaining due association with and charity to the rest of the more distinct members as he is capable of communion with them at that distance So that when I have proved a person to be a member of the Catholick Church it is not your Catholick Church that I mean No â—ound Christian is a member of yours it is Hereticks in the softer sense that are its matter It s necessary therefore that we first agree of the Definition of the Catholick Church before we dispute who is in it 2. Your word Properly so called is ambiguous referring either to the Etymologie or to some definition in an authentick Canon or to custom and common speech Of the first we have no reason now to enter controversie For the second I know no such stablisht Definition that we are agreed on For the third custom is so variable here not agreeing with it self that what is to be denominated Proper or Improper from it is not to be well conjectured However all this is but de nomine and What is the proper and What the improper use of the word Heretick is no Article of Faith nor necessary for our debate Therefore again you must accept of my distinguishing and give me leave to fly confusion 1. The word Heretick is either spoken of one that corrupteth the Doctrine of Faith as such or of one that upon some difference of Opinion or some personal quarrels withdraweth from the Communion of those particular Churches that before he held communion with and gathereth a separated party such are most usually called Schismaticks but of oâ—d the name Hereticks was oft applyed unto such 2. The word Heretick in the