substance and sense and most of the very words all Churches used the same And when the Council of Nice taught them the way of making new Creeds which Hilary Pictav so sadly complaineth of yet still the matter of the old Creed was the substance of them all And the Eastern Creed which was used before the Nicene Council for that such a one there was the most Learned Antiquaries give us sufficient proof was but the same in sense as the Western even the Exposition of the Baptismal Faith and this the Baptized did profess before Baptism And the work of Catechists was to teach this and the sense of it to the Catechumens And that He that believeth and is baptized that is truly devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost by the Baptismal Covenant shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned is by Christ himself made the sum of his Gospel or Law of Grace As the Image of the blessed Trinity on mans Soul is Life Light and Love so the summaries of that sacred Doctrine which must imprint it on us is the Symbolum Fidei the Creed the summary of things to be believed and the Lords Prayer the Symbolum and summary of things to be willed desired and sought and the Decalogue the summary of things to be practised being the Directory of Mans three Faculties the Intellect the will and the Executive Power And all this we believe was delivered to the Churches by the Apostles and received by all Christians many years eight at least before any Book of the New Testament was written And for the fuller understanding and improvement of it and for all the integral parts of Religion that were to be added the Apostles and Evangelists more enlargedly preached them to the People in their Sermons as Christ himself had done much of them We receive all that as Gods Word which by these Apostles was delivered as such to the Churches because they had the promise of the Holy Ghost to lead them into all truth and to bring all things that Christ taught and commanded to their remembrance We are assured that all that is contained in the New Testament was written by such inspired Persons and that the Spirit of God will knew that when they were to dye without written Records the memory of Mankind would not faithfully retain and deliver to Posterity such copious matter as the Integrals and useful Accidentals of Religion and therefore caused them to write it and leave it to Posterity So that our Christian Religion is contained and delivered to us in three Formulas or Prescripts The first containeth the whole Essence of Christianity and is the Sacramental Covenant in which we are believingly given up to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and God to us in the Relation of a God and Father a Saviour and a Sanctifier This is done initially ad esse in Baptism and after ad robur in the Lords Supper This is delivered to us by Tradition Naturally Infallible de facto For all Christians as such have received and entred this Sacramental Covenant and full History assureth us that the very same Form of it is come down in all the Churches to this day The second Formula is the Exposition of the three Articles of this Sacramental Covenant in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue which hath been delivered by memory also and kept unchanged save the foresaid additions of some explicatory words in the Creed to all the Churches to this day The third Form is all the holy Canonical Scriptures the Old Testament being as preparatory to the New which contain all the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals Our Religion then is all from Christ and his Spirit in inspired men commissioned to deliver it and is well called as you do the Apostolical Christianity We own no other It is all brought down to us by Tradition from the Apostles The Essentials in the Covenant and the explicatory Symbols or Summaries are delivered to us two ways First by Memory and Practice most currant and certain from Generation to Generation being no more than what Memory might well retain whereto yet the helps of the Ancients Writings reciting the Forms were used for the fuller certainty of Posterity Secondly in the holy Scriptures where they are contained as the Brain Heart and Stomach in the Body among all the rest as the Principal Parts The third form is so large that Memory could not preserve it and therefore God would have it delivered us in that Writing which we all call the Sacred Bible or Canonical Scripture This containeth thousands of words more than are of absolute necessity to Salvation but no more than is useful or helpful to Salvation In all this I have shewed you what our Religion is Objectively taken and which way we receive it Where you are therefore to note 1. That all our Sermons Writings Church-Articles c. are but the Expressions of our Subjective Religion telling other Men how particular Men and particular Churches understand those Divine Forms which are our Objective Religion These are various as Churches and Persons are every one having his own Faith and Religion in different measures and such expressions being but our sides mensurata may be altered and amended and we pretend not to perfection in them But the former being our sides vel Religio mensurans our Divine Objective Faith or Religion is inculpable and unalterable 2. Note that you Papists do grant all our Objective Faith and Religion even every word of it to be true infallible and of God You own I say every word of our Religion That is all the Sacramental Covenant all the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and all that which we call the holy Canonical Scriptures But we own not all yours So that you do not you cannot find fault with the least Particle of our Religion as to the truth of it but 1. You think that it is not enough And 2. That we come not to it the right way that is we take not our Faith upon the word of Papists as Papists Is not this the difference And is not this all that you cry out against us for And now let us see whether your way be better and surer than this of ours is I. Your Religion is much Bigger than ours II. You hold it on other Reasons and plead another way of receiving it I. Your Religion Objective containeth besides all our Bible all the Apocryphal Books and all the Decrees of General Councils and all the other un-written Traditions if there be any more who knows what you name your self here fasting on Frydays and on the vigils of Saints Ember-days Lent and Images and such like Here now we humbly propose to your consideration 1. Whether you will take all these into the Essentials of Christianity or not If not a Man may be a Christian and consequently of the Church or Body of Christ and in a state of Salvation without them Why then do
Naked Popery OR THE NAKED FALSHOOD Of a Book called the CATHOLICK NAKED TRUTH OR THE Puritan Convert to Apostolical Christianity Written by W. H. Opening their Fundamental Errour of Unwritten Tradition and their unjust Description of the Puritan the Prelatical Protestant and the Papist and their differences and better acquainting the ignorant of the true difference especially what a Puritan and what a Papist is By RICHARD BAXTER a Professor of meer Apostolical Christianity Trita frequansque via est per Amici fallere nomen Trita frequensque licet sit via crimen habet The common beaten way of mens deceit Is as a Loving Friend to work the Cheat But though this be the common beaten way It will prove criminal another day W. H. this Author pag. â—5 saith If you do not find that they your Catholick Neighbours hold nothing nor Practise nothing but what they are able to give a very satisfactory account of to any impartial Enquirer then say I am a Knave a Lyar and a Cheat one that deserveth no mercy from God or Man in this World or the next LONDON Printed for N. Simmons at the Princes Arms in S. Paul's Church-Yard M DC LXXVII TO THE AUTHOR AND HIS RELATIONS CHAP. I. WHEN the Confutation of the Treatise of Transubstantiation was in the Press this Book came to my notice written if the Stile may go for Proof by the same Author It is conjectured that your Name is Mr. W. Hutchinson of Lincolnshire sometime of Queens Colledge in Cambridge and that it is indeed your nearest Relations whom you so earnestly labour to pervert Your Stile perswadeth me that you are serious and verily think that your way is right And I suppose you see that we also are as confident of the truth of our Profession as you are of yours The Question is whether it be your Zeal or ours that is according to Knowledge The Title of your Religion greatly pleaseth me and is the same that I assume For we are I perceive agreed in this that it is the Apostolical Christianity that is the true and safe Religion And hath God left the matter so obscure as that we cannot come to an agreement in so weighty a matter of Fact as to know what the Apostolical Christianity was when even Common History giveth us notice what the Athenian Philosophers held and what the ancient Romans held and so of almost every literate Nation You study and we study You pray and we pray You would know the truth whatever it cost you and so would We. As a Man that looketh daily when I am called away to God I solemnly protest that if I could find that Popery were the true Apostolick Christianity I would joyfully quit all the Friends Hope and Interests of this World to embrace it What is it that is your advantage and what is our disadvantage Are you more impartial in your search I am so Conscious of my Impartiality that I cannot believe that this maketh the difference Is it that we have not read the Papists writings I have reason to believe that I have read as many of them at least as you have done if you are not much above sixty years of age as I hear you are not near it But you have Conversed with more of them than I have done It 's like you have But is that the reason of my mistake You earnestly invite your Relations to Converse with the Papists because mens writings may be mistaken And on this ground I perceive you build all the certainty of your Faith That our Fathers and our Grand-Fathers have told us Infallibly what they received from their Fathers and Grand-Fathers and so on This is your certainty I will tell you briefly what I take for the Apostolical Christianity and by what Notices I receive it and then I will again consider yours I take not Christianity to be a thing so hardly to be known as you would make it either as to the Being of it or the Publication I take it to have its Essentials Integrals and Accidentals and that these are not to be confounded If it cannot be readily known what Christianity is how shall we preach it to Heathens or how shall Christians be known to others or themselves and who can have the comfort of an unknown Religion You tell us that nothing of it is written in the New Testament but the Life of Christ by four Men and a few occasional Epistles c. But do you think that Christ himself did not institute Christianity and tell Men plainly what it was Did not those four Men write Christ's Doctrine as well as his Life And is he not the Author of our Faith Did he not preach the Gospel And do you not call these four Books the four Evangelists And doth not the Gospel contain and describe Christianity Did not Christ oft tell us what it is to be his Disciples And were not the Disciples called Christians shortly after as words of the same signification But what place is there for any doubt when Christ himself did institute Baptism and describe it and command that all Nations being Discipled should be Baptized into the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost as being the Faith which Disciples must profess And do not you to this day profess that Baptizing is Christening and that Baptism washeth away all sin supposing the Baptized to receive it as Baptism by true Covenant-consent at least And doth not Baptism enter us into the true Church of Christ Sure all this is past dispute where then is the difficulty Is not a truly baptized Person a Christian And was it then as hard a matter as you make it to know what Faith was necessary to Baptism in the Person at age or the Parent of Infants Surely then the Scripture that mentioneth the History of so many thousands baptized would have told us of that grand Controversie and how it was decided But no such Controversie was then debated for ought we there find If Baptismal Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our God and Father reconciled in Christ our Saviour and our Sanctifier be not the Symbol or Badge of Christians and that which visibly maketh them such your own Church and all the Christian World is deceived And we know that it was not the Custom of the Apostles and Pastors of the ancient Churches to make a meer Ceremony and dead Formality of Baptism by baptizing those that would but say the words I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost without understanding what they said And therefore their ordinary Preaching was the Exposition of these three Articles And the Creed called The Apostles is the Exposition of these three Articles which though some Clauses were since added and though the Churches tyed not themselves just to the very same words as we find by the various forms of this Creed in Irenaeus Tertullian Marcellus's in Epiphanius Ruffinus c. yet for the
Office and Dignity would he never have told the Church of Rome of their Mistris-ship and Infallibility above the rest Would so necessary a Fundamental of Faith have been so much silenced 3. Did the Apostles Evangelists or ancient Fathers use to Convert Infidels by any such Method and telling them that they must believe first the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergie and then believe the Gospel because he saith it is true Had this been the old Method would there not have been more Books necessary and written to prove this first Fundamental the Infallibility of the Roman Bishop and his Councils than to have proved the Gospel it self directly Is it not a wonder that we should have such Volumes as Eusebius his Praeparatio Demonstratio Evangel and so many written by those before and after him to prove the Gospel and none of them hit on this Method nor write at large to make it good The Churches Authority and Unity is ordinarily pleaded against Heresies and Schismes but who ever Converted Infidels by the Authority of the Papal Church either proved or asserted as the necessary Medium of Faith 4. Do you not confess that all other Churches may erre besides the Roman And their plea of Tradition you account invalid Your Book called Considerations on the Council of Trent by R. H. p. 40. saith All Conciliary Definitions are not only Declarations and Testifications of such Apostolical Traditions as were left by them evident and conspicuous in all Christian Churches Planted by them but are many times Determinations of Points deduced from and necessary consequents to such clear Traditionals whether written or unwritten 2. If the Acts of General Councils were only such Declarations of Apostolical Tradition yet it is possible that some particular Church may in time depart from such a Tradition entrusted to them else how can any Church become Heretical against any such Tradition Do you not at this day accuse the Greek Church the Muscovites the Armenians the Jacobites Syrians Copties Abassines the Protestants c. as having departed from or corrupted the first Tradition And how small a part of the Universality of Christians are the Papists And if the greater part of Christians may so forsake the Apostolical Tradition why may not the Pope of Rome and his Council How shall we be sure of their exemption from such danger You tell us over and over of our receiving this and that from our Fathers and Grand-Fathers And is that a certain Proof that it is Apostolical Why is it not so then with all the rest the Abassines the Armenians c. and the Majority of Christians But of this I have spoken in the former Treatise 5. And there I have desired you to tell us whether your Grandfather or his Priest was Infallible If yea how came he by it more than all those Churches If not do you not delude your Relations by drawing them to build their Faith on a fallible man or upon nothing Your Relations were not at the Council of Trent or Florence or Laterane How shall they be sure what the Pope and Council agreed on What Foundation but the words of your Priest or Grandfather have you for your assurance May not one of your Priests lye as well as all the Greek Abassine c. Churches When Pope Coelestine himself falsly urged the Nicene Council for Appeals to Rome contrary to Augustine and the Carthage Council Either tell your Readers plainly that it 's you and such as you that are the Infallible Foundation of their Faith or bid them stay and not go your way till they are certain what the Pope and his Council say and that he is a true Pope and it a true Council and that they are more Infallible than the major part of Christians And our Faith can be no stronger than the weakest necessary medium of it from whence it must arise 6. I have said so much of this in a small Book called The certainty of Christianity without Popery which I intreat you impartially to peruse where I have also shewed the utter uncertainty that Popery would reduce our Christianity to that I will now only tell you that after your talk of Tradition and Church and Fathers and Grandfathers if we had not much more testimony of Tradition for our Religion than you have for Popery we should think our Faith were very lame Compare ours with yours 1. Yours is A pretended Authoritative determination which rests upon a supposed Inspiration of some Persons by virtue of a special Priviledge peculiar to themselves 2. It is the Tradition of the minor part of Christians against the major 3. It rests on the pretended Infallibility of a Pope which great General Councils have said may be a Heretick and have deposed divers as Hereticks and worse And upon the Infallibility of General Councils which by Popes and other Councils are pronounced fallible unless confirmed by a Pope who may be a Heretick 4. It rests upon a Foundation viz. the Popes Divine Right of Primacy and Infallibility which is expresly denyed by two of the first four great General Councils approved to this day viz. that of Calcedon reciting the sense of that of Constantinople against the said Divine right affirming that the Popes Primacy was given him by the Fathers because Rome was the Imperial Seat 5. It rests upon an Authority of Popes and General Councils which being at first but the Clergie of one Empire hath thence claimed the same Power over all the Christian World which they had got in the Dominions of one Prince 6. It rests on a Claim downright contradictory to it self as aforesaid viz. That we must believe that the Pope hath this Power and Infallibility given him and his Councils by Christ and his Gospel before we can believe that there is a Christ and a Gospel authorized and true Now our Tradition is this For all the Essentials of our Religion the Sacramental Covenant and the three expository Symbols we have the currant Tradition both of the Papists and all the rest of the Christian World Yea that every Book that we call Canonical is the true Word of God not only the Papists but almost all the Christian World confess And defacto that these Books came down from the Apostles at least that the Gospel was preached by them we have the Testimony also of Enemies and Persecutors And are not all these more than the Testimony of one Sect alone 2. And in this we have as much to confirm us as you have of the wisdom piety care of the Church to preserve the Gospel and much more too for we have the Piety of all the Churches to plead and not your Sect alone And we undertake to prove such a moral Infallibility as is also Natural viz. That Mans Nature and Interests supposed it is no more possible for so many Persons and Nations of cross Interests to have agreed in their Testimony for the Gospel than for all the
contentious Lawyers in the Land to have agreed falsly to inform us that our Statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments But a domineering Faction alone might easilier have deceived men 3. Yea even as to Christs Promise we can better prove that the Universal Church or Body of Christians shall never lose the Faith than you can prove it of Rome alone or the Papal Sect. Bellarmine himself dare not say that Rome shall not cease to be the feat of the Papacy or shall not be utterly destroyed And then how can there be a Bishop of Rome when there is no Rome But you 'll say that if he dwell at Avignion he may be called Bishop of Rome But if he be called so when he is not so at least when there is no Rome or no Christian Church there sure a false Name is not an Essential part of our Religion If you say that at Avignion or Ravenna or Vienna he may be S. Peter's Successor and so the Universal Monarch still I answer Then it seems that the Council of Calcedon as afore-cited was in the right that Romes Priviledge was given by the Fathers because it was the Imperial Seat And so that the Pope is not S. Peter's Successor eo nomine because he is Bishop of Rome But if the Bishop of Avignion or Vienna might become S. Peter's Successor who never was Bishop there how shall we know that the Bishop of Rome is his Successor now We have hitherto had no better means to prove it and deceive the World than by saying that S. Peter dyed Bishop of Rome where the Pope is Bishop But S. Peter dyed not Bishop of Avignion If the Place prove not the Succession tell us if you can what doth Is it the Election By whom Who are those men that have the Power of chusing S. Peter a Successor You know I suppose that the Pope hath been chosen 1. Sometime by the People witness the blood-shed at the choice of Damasus in the Church 2. Sometime by the People and the Neighbour Ordaining Bishops 3. Sometime by a Synod 4. Sometime by the Emperours 5. And lastly by the Roman Cardinals If any of these may chuse then we may have four or five lawful Popes chosen four or five several ways at once If only one of these have the Power S. Peter had no Successors under all the other Elections So that the Claim will fall rather to Antioch than to Avignion or any other Town because they say it was S. Peter's first Bishoprick from which he removed for a greater If you are driven with poor Mr. Johnson alias Terret to say that Any way will serve which serveth for the truth of an Election of Princes c. then still we may have four Popes at least I doubt you must be forced to say as some that it is the acceptance of the Universal Church which must prove who is the Universal Monarch 1. But some must be Electors before it comes to acceptance And who hath the Power of Electing And 2. what if now the major part of the Church should prefer the Bishop of Constantinople I hope you are not so ignorant of Cosmography as not to know that the Greek Church when they first preferred the Bishop of Const was far greater than the Latine 3. And I suppose you know that it is not near half the Christian World that now accepteth of the Pope as their Governour 4. And I pray you do but get the Pope to suspend his claim till the Church Universal accept him and we shall not be troubled with him For how shall they signifie their acceptance If in a General Council you know how they of Constance Basil and Pisa are reviled by the Pope and those that now go for your Church for pretending to a power to depose and chuse Popes and how Eugenius the fourth prevailed against such a Deposition And if these Councils were not your Universal Church representative where shall we think to find it In sum we have the Tradition of a Church as big as three of the Roman for all our Religion and of all the Roman Church it self besides the Confession of the Enemies of the Church Pagans Infidels Mahometans Jews and Hereticks we have not one word that 's part of our Religion which your selves confess not to be true We believe that the Faith of the Universal Church shall never fail nor the Gates of Hell prevail against it And so you see that we may far better tell how Infallibly we have received our Religion from our Forefathers than you can do of yours But we believe not that this Universal Church hath any Head but Christ no Humane Vicarious Monarch or Governour of all the World We believe that Men must Believe in Christ before they can know that the Pope is his Vicar if it had been true We know as sure as History can tell us that the Pope's first Primacy and the rest of the Patriarchates were but the Humane Ordinances of the Clergie of one Empire and not of the whole Christian World And we know not nor you but Rome and its Church and Bishop may yet all cease together But you make me most admire at you that in this Book also you tell your Relations and other Readers of the uncertainty of notice by Books in Comparison of converse and talk with those of your present Party yea that your own Religion is not to be known by Books as being lyable to be misunderstood so well as by talking with Papists and asking them what is their Faith or Religion Sir I judge by your Stile that you are a man of zeal and conscience in your way and therefore that you write not this fraudulently against your conscience Sure then you must needs be a man of more than ordinary ignorance that can believe what you say 1. Is it your Objective or your Subjective Faith that we are disputing of If it be not the Rule and Object of your Faith every man indeed may tell us what he believeth himself but no man can tell us what another believeth And then you have as many Religions as men for every man hath one of his own and no two men in the world know and believe just all the same things neither more nor less And what shall those of us think of your Religion then who find that one of you affirmeth what another denyeth For instance A worthy Person of your Religion affirmed to me that notwithstanding the Fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and Mother a Mother hath not any Governing Power over a Child nor the Child oweth any obedience to the Mother during the Fathers life because it were confusion were there more Governours in a House than one though subordinate one to the other Is this your common Judgment May I say therefore that this is other mens belief You know that when we alledge the sayings of your most Learned Writers we are ordinarily told that it is not the judgment of
particular Doctors but of the Church in Councils which we must call your Churches Judgment You undertake not to justifie any more And if I talk with any of my Neighbours and ask him what he believeth have I any more than a single Doctors opinion Is his Answer the Faith of your Church But would you have any one past seven years old believe you that writing is of no more use to Memory for conservation of Antiquities when God would not trust his Ten Commandments to the Peoples Memories but would write them in Stone and put them in the Arke which you have so little skill in Antiquity as to say here was the first writing Sure if you will read your Jesuite Euseb Nirembergius de Antiqu. scripturae you will not say that your Grand-Father taught you truly that Opinion as the Tradition of the Church Why do you write to your own Relations if writing be so un-intelligible Could the Bible have been kept as well in Memory as by Writings Why were the Gospels written then Do you go to Tradition or to Books to decide any Controversie now of the various readings Did Pope Clem. 8. and Sixtus 5. reform the vulgar Latine by Memory or by Books Pope Pius's Trent Oath sweareth Men to Interpret Scripture according to the consent of the Fathers Do any of your Doctors know how that is by Memory and Oral Tradition or by Books Did Possevine and Sixtus Senensis and such others Correct Books by Oral Tradition or by Books Did Celestine and the Carthage Council debate the Case of the Nicene Canon a narrow Instance which Memory might have served for out of Mens Memories or out of written Records Why doth 〈◊〉 bring us out new Forged Canons and why do the Copies of many Councils differ in the recital of Canons if Memory and Universal un-written Tradition can reconcile the difference Was the Athenian Philosophy propagated and preserved better by Memory or by Books Why is not the Stoicks and Epicureans and others as fully known now as Aristotles and Plato's if Memory without Books could have done Have you as full notice now of the Acts of James John Matthew Thomas Bartholomew c. without Book as you have of Paul's by the Book Is memory sufficient to have preserved to us the Statures of the Land without Books and Records Yea or the Common-Law without any Records or Book Cases Why are all your Councils written and all the Decretals to say nothing of the Civil Roman Laws Institutes Pandects and Digests Can you decide the Controversies about the Decretals published by Isidore Mercator by Tradition What are all your Libraries for at the Vatican Florence Paris and in each Learned Mans House if Books be so useless and unintelligible If one of your Relations ask you what is in the Council of Trent Florence Laterane and so upward can you tell him fully without Book by Tradition And are not these Councils your very Religion Doth every Papist Neighbour carry them all in his brain more certainly than in Books Or could your Grandfather and Grandmother have told us more certainly what is in them than Crab Surius Binius Baronius Justellus Albaspinaeus Petavius Sirmondus c. could do Or is all left uncertain because it is written Through Gods Mercy our Essentials and somewhat more are delivered certainly down to us by two hands by Oral and Practical Tradition and by the Scripture because they lye in a narrow room But yet if you had the front to tell the World that your immutable Church hath never changed the Creed it self we could not believe you because Books contradict you Tradition from your Great Grandfather cannot assure us that Filioque was in the Creed from the days of the Apostles Nor that the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints and the other words mentioned in Vessius and Usher de Symbolis were in so long Nor that the Greeks added no words to their Creed at Nice nor afterward at Constantinople in General Councils nor that all S. Hilaries outcry against Creeds was in vain Nor can Tradition without Book yet assure us what were the very words of the Creed used commonly by the Greeks immediately before the Nicene Council nor who wrote that ascribed to Athanasius Nor among the various Formula's of that called the Apostles found as aforesaid in Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Ruffinus c. which of them was in constant use or whether liberty of such alteration of words was not then used And no Unwritten Report of your Grandfather can assure us that your Mass-Book or Liturgy was the same in the Apostles days as it is now nor that it was for 600 years the same in all the Churches of one Empire and that every Bishop had not power to use what Liturgy he pleased in his own City or Parochia Nor can your Tradition assure us that what the Father and Grandfather used was used from the Apostles when the Church of Neocaesarea clamoured at S. Basil for his singularity and innovations and S. Basil retorts on them that they at Neocaesarea had scarce left any thing unchanged I hope this is not the less credible because Basil hath written it At least I pray hereafter give over your ill practice of leading simple Readers into a Wood of Church-History to lose them and the Question there among a multitude of Citations of old Books when you know not what else to say as William Johnson did because there the ignorant know nothing themselves but may as well believe the Affirmer as the Denyer and at least the diversion to voluminous Controversies about particular mens words may hide your Errours Do not resolve all the Controversie yea the Faith of your Followers into a multitude of Books of Councils and Fathers which they never saw And do not take so much care to corrupt and alter Books for your interest as instances and your Indices Expurg tell us you have done Resolve without Book the Controversie about your great Laterane Council whether Dr. Taylor Dr. Pierson Dr. Gunning and Bishop Cousins lately that say Innocent 3. made and published the Canons and the Council did not consent to them be in the right or rather they that answered Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning and indeed your Church which holds the contrary which Mr. Dodwell seemeth to me lately to have fully proved in his Book about tolerating Papists Nay why may we not expect that you lay by your Book Catechisms your Office Books your Controversie Books and teach your People all without Book But by this Counsel to your Relations you fully shew that you would have them to have no certainty at all either what Christianity is or what Popery is For they shall never speak with the Universal Church or with a General Council while they live And all their Neighbours to whom you send them are fallible Persons I suppose you one of the chief of them and alas how failible you are you have in two Writings grosly
should on such Terms be of one Religion They believe Socrates and Sozomen who tell us of the great diversity of Rites and Orders in the ancient Churches which all consisted with the same Religion Faith and Love They abhor the Principle of hating persecuting yea and separating from one another for such differences as will unavoidably adhere to the imperfect condition of Christians here on Earth At this time in England a considerable part if not the far greatest of the silenced Ministers are for the Primitive Episcopacy and some Liturgie as you may see in their offer of A. Bishop Usher's Reduction to the King and their desires of a reformed Liturgie Among the old Non-conformists there were divers degrees such as Dr. Regnolds Mr. Perkins Dr. Humfrey Paul Bayn c. did yield to more than some others could do How can you tell then by the name of a Puritane what to charge any single Person with But it seemeth you take their Non-conformity in General and their temper of mind and life together But then you greatly wrong them and seem not at all to know what their Religion is There are two things which you say they mistake in 1. Their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness and the Covenant and not solicitously endeavouring after the acquisition of Virtue because they trust to the Imputed Righteousness your words are too large to recite You partly here unworthily injure them by ascribing to them the very opinions and words of the Antinomians whom they have better confuted than ever you did And as to their Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness even Bellarmine in one sense owneth it And whether our sense be sound I provoke you to try particularly by your perusal of my own Writings on that Subject especially a late Treatise of Justifying Righteousness and Imputation and a Treatise called Catholick Theologie In which if there be nothing which you dare or can confute judge whether your meer derision of Imputative Righteousness be not delusory If you dare say that you trust not to Christs Sacrifice and meritorious perfect righteousness as procuring you pardon and life Jus ad Impunitatem Regnum Coelorum enjoy your self-confidence while you can But if you say in this as we then make publick Confession of the injury of your reproach of such Imputed Righteousness as you trust your salvation upon your self I imagine you will say that my judgment is no certain signification of the judgment of the Puritans for I am singular and therefore what I say in these Books is no proof of the sense of the Non-conforming Puritans But 1. my judgment of their sense is as good as yours 2. Do you know of any one Nonconformist that hath published any dissent to what I have written Dr. Tully was a Conformist 3. You profess before to borrow the name Puritan from the Prelatists And I have this to say for my Authority in declaring the sense of Puritans that one or more whose genius is of kin to the Roman but far less mild than yours who are Prelatical or super-Prelatical have about 17 years ago being Masters of that Language branded me with the Name of Purus putus Puritanus qui totum Puritanismum totus spirat The Pseudo-Tilenus hath just the same stile as the late Unmasker of the Presbyterians who revileth modest judicious pious and peaceable J. Corbet and in the most ingenious strain of wrath and malice doth valiantly militate against Love Therefore Prelatists being Judges I may as credibly as another tell you what is the Puritan Judgment 2. Your second accusation of the Puritan is that He begins to quarrel with all external Worship and Ceremonies But this is also spoken ignorantly and untruly You before mistook the Antinomian for the Puritan and here you seem to take the Separatist for the Puritan Read the Reformed Liturgy and other Papers offered at the Savoy to the Bishops and you may see that though they are not for silencing excommunicating and damning men for a Ceremony nor for making as many Religions as there are differences about Ceremonies yet they are for doing all things to edification decently and in order and for external as well as internal Worship of God As knowing that the Body is his and made to Worship him as well as the Soul and therefore should fall down and kneel before him and reverently and holily behave it self in his Service You say p. 5. He is much confirmed in this his imagination by considering the open profaneness and little sense of God he observeth generally in zealous Conformists And on the other side he taketh notice of his Brethren the Non-conformists that they are generally free from open and scandalous sins and at least sigh and breath after interior spirit and devotion which certainly must be that must give us a title to Heaven rather than a few Cringes and exterior Verbal Devotions which any one though never so prophane may easily exercise 1. But do you not here and in your former description quite contradict your self when you charge them as neglecting inherent righteousness 2. We are not so foolish as not to know that the unreverent hypocritical abuse of Gods external Worship by others whosoever will not excuse us for neglecting it Of the Conformists we must speak anon 3. By the way I would you could impartially consider if the Puritans be so good men as you fairly confess them to be what the reason is that Papists generally are far more fiery against them than against those whom you speak so meanly of as Prelatical Protestants Remember how your Writer after the London Fire answered by Dr. Lloid did flatter these as more suitable to the Papists genius in comparison of the Puritans And the Unmasker against J. Corbet will tell you out of Watson an honourable Witness hanged for Treason in Cobham's c. Conspiracy how bad the Puritans are comparing them with the Jesuites And if your Laws took place in England what abundance of these Puritans would you make Bonfires of yea your own Relations were not like to scape you They have told me to my face how quickly they would otherwise silence me than the Prelates do if I were in their power And the Decrees De Haereticis comburendis exterminandis more fully tell it us Yea whence is it that most certain experience proveth it that by how much the nearer any Protestants genius is to the Papists by so much the more bloody cruel malicious or slanderous and unmerciful he is to the Puritanes You 'll say for both that it is because the Puritans are most against them and Interest ruleth the World But I answer 1. God's Interest is highest with every true Christian 2. I confess it 's true that Puritans are most against Popery But truly as far as I have been acquainted with them they are not most against your Persons nor would have any injustice or cruelty exercised against you But the fear of your Faggots or Powder-Plots and such
to his Salvation he having nothing to do but to believe that Jesus Christ hath done all for him Answ I had hoped there had been few such left in England Even Crisp and Saltmarsh were scarce so erroneous And were you such a one O miserable Man that was such a Puritan Who did bewitch you so grosly to contradict the whole Tenour of the Gospel It is just with God to leave you to set now as light by the Meritorious Righteousness of Christ as procuring you Pardon Grace and Glory as you did then set by Christian Virtues Piety and Love But what if it was so with you will that allow you to belie so many others How many score Volumes have the Puritans written which assert not only the possibility but the absolute necessity of Piety Charity Humility c. without which none can see God Infants Case is not here medled with I know not one Person in all the Land or World that will not abhor as false what you here charge in common on the Puritans unless he be a very gross Antinomian or some grosser Heretick here unknown Protestants Puritans Separatists Anabaptists yea Quakers all abhor it And yet you feared not to put this in Print Perhaps you will pretend for it the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone But they that say that Faith alone going first with Repentance doth justifie them by procuring the pardon of their sins and their Union with Christ do say that at the same moment of time it also sanctifieth them by procuring from Christ the Spirit of Sanctification giving them Love Humility Piety c. And that this is of absolute necessity to their Salvation Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 1. 6. 7. 13. So much of your false self-condemning description of a Puritan CHAP. III. II. YOU next Characterize the Prelatical Protestant Having said before p. 5. Their Preachers in their Sermons have little Life or Zeal and seldom discourse of such Truths as are apt to awaken Mens Consciences and make them lay to heart the great concern of the Salvation of their Souls Or if they do at any time preach of Judgment or of Hell Repentance or a New Life they do it very coldly and imperfectly and seem to talk like Parrots of what they have learnt by rote or out of others Books and not what they have had any experience of in their hearts And p. 6. Generally speaking I wish it were a slander Prelatick Protestants are very Prophane and give no signs of any interiour trouble of Conscience And if any of them begin to be heartily troubled for his sin he is observed either to turn Fanatick or Papist Answ If by a Prelatick Protestant you should unhandsomly mean only such as are worldly Clergy-men like too many of your Roman Prelates and their Curates who take Gain for Godliness and who allow their Flesh their Pride their Covetousness and Voluptuousness and Sloth to chuse their Religion whose God is their Belly who glory in their shame and who mind Earthly things and are Enemies to Cross-bearing and through Enmity to those that are better than themselves are Cross-imposers and Persecutors and Silencers of sober faithful Ministers because they cross their Pride and worldly Interest such it 's like may be no better Men than you describe them But why should you take the Word in so narrow a sense But if by Prelatick Protestants you mean all such Protestants whose judgment is for Episcopacy 1. You deceive and I suppose are deceived in your distinguishing these from Non-conformists It 's true that there are envious false-hearted Prelatists in the World that make false names for their Brethren to procure the belief of their false reports of them And God will cut out the lying Tongue But I will tell you the truth whose malice soever is against it there are Episcopal as well as Presbyterian and Independent Non-conformists now Yea divers that are against the late Wars of the Parliament and against the Covenant and never took it and some that have been Souldiers for the King and suffered for him Yea so considerable is the number of them that are Episcopal that in 1660. when the King called them to treat in order to agreement they offered him no other Form of Church Government than A. Bishop Usher's Reduction in which not a Pin of Honour nor one Farthing of their Revenue was desired to be taken from Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons but only the Parish Ministers enabled under them to have done somewhat more that belongeth to their Office instead of Lay-Chancellors c. Most Non-conformists of my acquaintance would be glad of the terms contained in the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs where Bishops and Archbishops are left as rich and high as they were before So far are Non-conformists Episcopal Protestants 2. And though Conformity be very much changed from what it was heretofore Episcopacy is not And I must tell you that I do not think that the Christian World hath more godly learned worthy Ministers than many of the Episcopal were heretofore Do you know what men Bishop Jewel A. Bishop Grindall and many more of old were And A. Bishop Usher Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant and many more of late Who hath written more earnestly and hotly for Episcopacy than Bishop Downame who wrote the great Latine Book to prove the Pope Antichrist yet who that knew him did ever question his piety or diligence And if you look to the old Conformable Presbyters read their Books and enquire of the Lives of many of them and then confess that they were better men and better Preachers than you describe Peruse the Writings of Mr. Rob. Bolton William Whateley William Fenner Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Gouge Mr. Thomas Gataker Mr. Crook and abundance of such others and enquire how they laboured and lived and you may hear that they were neither such Parrots nor prophane ones as you mention There may be some proportionable alteration supposed to be now made in the persons of the Conformists answerable to that which is made in Conformity it self But surely if you know London and many Miles near it and many Parishes in the several Counties you must confess that now there are many Learned Pious Conformists who Preach zealously and live religiously and hate Covetousness and Persecution and long to see the promoting of Piety Peace and Concord But if you expect a better Vindication of them I must desire you to consider of two things 1. That in most Countries and Ages the worldliest men that is the worst have been the greediest strivers and seekers for Church-Power and Perferments and he that seeketh most diligently is the likeliest to find And that ordinarily the Vulgar do dance after the Pipe of him that is uppermost and will be of the Religion of them that can help or hurt them be it what it will be Most will be of the Religion which is owned by Law or countenanced by
Spiritual Body is extensive and invisible to us cannot tell you where it is present or absent no more than of an Angel 2. But we all hold as a piece of Plate or Silver Barrs is really and truly turned into the Kings Coine so the Bread and Wine is really and truly turned into Christs Sacramental Body and Blood and yet one is Silver and the other is Bread and Wine still The change is true but Relative by its Separation to that holy use as a Common person may be Really Changed into a King or a Lord or a Judge or a Captain or a Bishop or a Doctor and yet be a man still This real change we all Confess But the question is whether there be no Bread V. You say The Prelatick Protestant wonders that the Puritan when he is going out of this world should find difficulty to make a particular Confession of his sins if any grievous matter lye on his Conscience and humbly desire the Prelatick Priests absolution saying c. Answ I know of no difference between the Prelatist and the Puritan about Confession or Absolution Dr. John Reynolds a true Puritan received Absolution before he dyed Meer Puritans believe that it is a duty to Confess our sins to men 1. In Case of such injury to any as must have a Confession towards the injured persons Satisfaction and forgiveness 2. In Case of such difficulty about either the nature of the sin or Consequent dangers or dutyes as make a particular Guide necessary who cannot resolve our doubts till he know the Case 3. In Case that the Conscience be so burdened with the sin as that the sinner cannot by other means find ease till he have disburdened himself by such Confession 4. In Case it be necessary to heal any scandal given to others It is a very great duty for drunkards fornicators deceivers and such others to go to their Companions and lament their sin and perswade them no more to do as they have done And if required by the Pastors to take publick shame before the Congregation and acknowledg that the doctrine of Christ never countenanced them in any such sin that Religion and the Church may not bear the reproach of their delinquency And to beg the prayers of the Congregation for their pardon and that the Pastor by virtue of his office will pronounce it But we are not ashamed to confess that neither Puritans nor Prelatists think it lawful to make the people believe that they must needs tell the Priest of all the sins that they commit and dutyes that they omit Nor to uphold pragmatical Priests in the trade of knowing all mens thoughts and secret actions even Princes by which they may betray them 1. The number of people and of their sins is so great as render it impossible In this Parish it 's thought there is above threescore thousand souls How many thousand sinful thoughts or words or deeds a great part of these may commit in a year I leave to your Conjecture only I must tell you that if all men High and Low that are called Papists about us should but tell the Priest of every time they are drunk and every Fornication they have committed every prophane Oath they have sworn every Lye they have told especially against the Protestants and of every filthy and prophane Word that they have spoken and every Oppression of the poor and every filthy or covetons thought that hath been in their hearts they had need of a very Traditional Memory to remember them or great plenty of Ink and Paper to record them and a whole Diocess of Clergy-men in one Parish to hear them How many hundred Priests must this Parish have if all should thus confess all sins of Commission and Omission every cold Prayer and omitted Prayer Exhortation Alms Example c. especially the great Omissions of the Soul in the defects of the exercise of Faith Hope Love and Patience c. 2. And what good will it do a man that is himself of sound understanding and integrity to open his Conseience to an ignorant or unconscionable man that will call evil good and good evil and will put him upon sin as you here do by your Relations or that dare himself sin as boldly as you here do when you accuse Puritans and Prolates as holding meer Imputed Holiness 3. And how great a temptation and injury may this be to your Priests in such instances as Montaltus the Jansenist mentioneth with which I will not defile my Paper when alas most of them are not men fit to bear such temptations What if twenty thousand People in one Parish should each make this Confession to a Papist Priest I am afraid I have sinned in believing the common Report that you are a very ignorant drunken sot and a common whoremaster and a proud covetous lying man would it not be like to enrage the Priest into an enmity against his Flock If all the Fornicators in such a Parish should tell such Priests of all their filthy thoughts and words and their immodest actions and actual Fornications how like were it to make such impressions on the poor Priests Phantasie as would pollute him with many filthy imaginations VI. You adde The Prelatick Protestant wonders at the Puritan's niceness that he can by no means be perswaded to bow at the Name of Jesus When Nature teacheth us a Relative Reverence c. The sound of the Name Jesus is vanished and gone before the superstitious Worshipper can make his mimical Congie Whereas the Picture a far more lively representation of the same great Lord remains Ans 1. The Puritans think it not unlawful to bow when God or Jesus are named But 1. They are loth to serve those men that would turn all serious Religion into a dead Image of it 2. And they like not bowing at the Name Jesus and not at the Name God or Christ or Immanuel or Jehovah or the Holy Ghost 2. As to Images I will but refer you to Dr. Stillingfleet's last Book against Godwin which hath fully proved that you use them as truly Idolatrously as did the Heathens VII Your next Instance is The Conformists rejecting the Popish Girdle Stole and Casuble and yet wondring at the Puritans rejecting the Surplice Ans The former Answers serve to this Some Puritans would use the Surplice if that would serve and satisfie But they see that if they say A first they must say B next and so on to the end of your Alphabet But still you tell us what great things your new Religion doth consist of and what great cause you had to turn from the Puritans to the Papists If you had known no more than Books can tell you and your Grandfather had not known better than Baronius himself what the Apostles did and instituted we should never have known that the Religion which is integrated by a Surplice Girdle Stole and Casuble had been herein Apostolical and not rather a novel thing VIII Your
and allowed them so many and various Societies and with so great Priviledges as obliged them generally to uphold and serve him Though he cruelly persecuted all that were against his Power and Interest yet he allowed almost all the Diversities of such as would but unite in him and serve him 6. And as he so twisted his own and all his Clergies Interest that they were all ready to obey and defend him against their several Princes and thereby had a great power in every Christian State in Europe so keeping all his Clergie unmarryed their wealth still accumulated and flowed into the Church And the Eastern Empire being first weakned and then overthrown and the Western Nations kept weak and in continual Wars against each other there was none well able to resist his Pride but one party still was ready to flatter him partly to keep their own Clergy in Peace and partly to have his help against their Enemies And the grand Cheat by which they were commonly deceived was that they lookt more at his present possession of Primacie than at the reason and right by which he claimed it and so he that had been Prime Patriarch in one Empire set up by the Prince still claimed the right of the same places when the Empire was dissolved as if the Subjects of the Kings of France Spain c. must obey him because they did so when they were the Subjects of Constantine Theodosius Valentinian c. For by little and little he changed his Title mentioned in the Council of Calcedon into a pretended Divine Right and so they that would not have obeyed him as set up by Caesar and his Councils obeyed him as if he had been set up by God For the name of St. Peter and his Chair and Successour was used as the common blind And next to that he did by degrees change his claim of a Primacie in the Empire into a claim of Primacie in all the World and his claim of a meer Primacie into a claim of Soveraignty or Governing Monarchy If you ask me how could he blind Men so far as to make such a change You seem not to know Man-kind nor to observe common experience Do you not consider what power the Clergie had every where got with the People What an advantage possession and St. Peters name were And how lamentably ignorant they kept the People Do we not see that even in our more knowing times yea among Protestants yea with some Divines the evident distinction between their Humane Right and their pretended Divine Right and between an Universal Council or Church of the Empire and of the whole World have not been sufficiently observed in our Disputes against them And the additional Countries of voluntary Subjects in Brittain Hungary Sweden Denmark c. which of later times since his Imperial Primacie have fallen in to him have much helped to blind the people herein and to serve his Claim as by Divine Right For which ends his Emissaries have taken great pains at the East and West Indies in China and Japan and Congo and once they made an attempt in Abassia and among the Greeks and in many other Nations of the World laudably seeking to win some Heathens to Christ that they might win them to the Pope and turbulently seeking to disturb the Greeks and other Christian Churches to draw them to the obedience of the Pope The Doctrines by which they promote their design are more than I may now stay to open I. One of the chief is by depressing the Honour of the sacred Scriptures as insufficient to acquaint us with all Gods will that is necessary to our salvation without supplemental Tradition that so all men might be brought to depend on them as the Keepers of Tradition But 1. Is their Tradition yet written in any of their own Books or not If not where are they kept And who knoweth what they are Is it not strange that so many Doctors in so many Ages all remembring them would none of them ever write them down Are they in the Memory of the Pope only What of those that could not read or that were condemned as Hereticks of Infidels Then all the World must receive them from the Popes Memory If so must it be Word or Writing And had he no Memory of them before he was Pope But if it be in other Mens Memories that your unwritten Traditions are kept in whose is it If in all the Doctors of your Church why did not Luther Melancthon Pet. Martyr and the rest that turned from you know them Or did they suddenly forget them all when they turned Protestants And how vast must your necessary Religion be if yet it must have more in it unwritten than is to be found in all your great Volumes of Councils and your huge Library But I suppose you will say that all your unwritten Traditions are now written If so they are not unwritten And how long have they been written and by whom If Fathers and Sons could keep them unwritten in memory a thousand years why not 1100 and why not 1600 c. If they were written in the beginning where be the Books Are they not such as other Christians can read and understand as well as you or an illiterate Pope If there be a necessity of having them in writing now was there not the same necessity to former Ages 2. I suppose you will send us to your Councils for those Traditions But if the Bishops know them not before they come to the Council how do they begin to know them then Do they go thither for a new miraculous Revelation of an old Tradition left with the whole Church 1. But do not Councils oft determine things confessedly uncertain to the Church before and yet out of utter uncertainty it suddenly becometh an Article of Faith For Instance the great Council at Basil saith Bin. sess 30. p. 80. A hard Question hath been in divers parts and before this Synod about the Conception of the glorious Virgin Mary and the beginning of her Sanctification Some saying that the Virgin and her Soul was for some time or instant of time actually under Original Sin Others on the contrary saying that from the beginning of her Creation God loving her gave her Grace by which preserving and freeing that blessed Person from the Original Spot We having diligently lookt into the Authorities and Reasons which for many years past have in publick relation on both sides been alledged before this holy Synod and having seen many other things about it and weighed them by mature consideration do Define and Declare That the Doctrine affirming That the glorious Virgin Mary the Mother of God by the singular preventing and operating Grace of God was never actually under Original Sin but was ever free from all Original and actual Sin and was holy and immaculate is to be approved held and embraced of all Catholicks as godly and consonant to Church-worship Catholick Faith right Reason